• Transactions of the Korean hydrogen and new energy society
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• v.30 no.1
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• pp.21-28
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• 2019

Reversible solid oxide fuel cell (ReSOC) system was integrated with waste steam for electrical energy storage in distributed energy storage application. Waste steam was utilized as external heat in SOEC mode for higher hydrogen production efficiency. Three system configurations were analyzed to evaluate techno-economic performance. The first system is a simple configuration to minimize the cost of balance of plant. The second system is the more complicated configuration with heat recovery steam generator (HRSG). The third system is featured with HRSG and fuel recirculation by blower. Lumped models were used for system performance analyses. The ReSOC stack was characterized by applying area specific resistance value at fixed operating pressure and temperature. In economical assessment, the levelized costs of energy storage (LCOS) were calculated for three system configurations based on capital investment. The system lifetime was assumed 20 years with ReSOC stack replaced every 5 years, inflation rate of 2%, and capacity factor of 80%. The results showed that the exergy round-trip efficiency of system 1, 2, 3 were 47.9%, 48.8%, and 52.8% respectively. The high round-trip efficiency of third system compared to others is attributed to the remarkable reduction in steam requirement and hydrogen compression power owning to fuel recirculation. The result from economic calculation showed that the LCOS values of system 1, 2, 3 were 3.46 ¢/kWh, 3.43 ¢/kWh, and 3.14 ¢/kWh, respectively. Even though the systems 2 and 3 have expensive HRSG, they showed higher round-trip efficiencies and significant reduction in boiler and hydrogen compressor cost.