18 Exergy Analysis of Gas Turbine – Molten Carbonate Fuel Cell Hybrid Power Plant

In this work, thermodynamic analysis of Molten Carbonate Fuel Cell-Gas Turbine hybrid power generation system has been carried out for different fuels like methane, natural gas, coal gas and ethanol to evaluate energy efficiency, exergy efficiency and exergy destruction of each component. The effects of compression ratio (r_p), turbine inlet temperature (TIT) and ambient temperature of air on the performance of the system have been analyzed. The outcome of the system modeling reveals that MCFC and the combustion chamber are the main sources of exergy destruction. When the methane, natural gas, coal gas and an ethanol are used as fuels, at the optimum compression ratio 7 and the turbine inlet temperature 1123K, the total thermal efficiencies are found to be 60.6%, 59.45%, 58.72% and 58.96% respectively. Similarly the exergy efficiencies are obtained as 58.25%, 56.62%, 57.8% and 52.99% respectively.