• Journal of Energy Engineering
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.251-258
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• 2016

This article reports current status of micro fuel cell-combined heat and power (${\mu}FC$-CHP) systems which utilize both power and heat generated by fuel cells. There are several options for constructing CHP systems and among them, fuel cells are the most useful and their total energy efficiency combining heat and power can reach up to about 90%. Fuel cells are classified as five types based on the electrolyte, but the most suitable fuel cell types for the ${\mu}FC$-CHP system are proton exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs) and solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs). ${\mu}FC$-CHP systems have several advantages such as decrease of the transmission-distribution loss, reduced costs of electricity due to distributed power generation, and environmental-friendliness owing to zero emission. The main drawback of the ${\mu}FC$-CHP systems is the high initial investment, however, it keeps decreasing as the technology development reduces production costs. Currently, Japan is the most leading country of the ${\mu}FC$-CHP market, however, Korea tries to expand the market by planning the deployment of 1 million units of ${\mu}FC$-CHP systems and governmental subsidiary supporting of half of the install price. In this report, integration technologies for connecting FC and CHP, and technology trends of leading countries are presented as well.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
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• v.34 no.1
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• pp.19-26
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• 2010

A PEMFC(proton exchange membrane fuel cell) is a good candidate for residential power generation to be coped with the shortage of fossil fuel and green house gas emission. The attractive benefit of the PEMFC is to produce electric power as well as hot water for home usage. The thermal management of PEMFC for RPG is to utilize the heat of PEMFC so that the PEMFC can be operated at its optimal efficiency. In this study, thermal management system of PEMFC stack is modeled to understand the dynamic response during load change. The thermal management system of PEMFC for RPGFC is composed of two cooling circuits, one for controling the fuel cell temperature and the other for heating up the water for home usage. The different operating strategy is applied for each cooling circuit considering the duty of those two circuits. Even though the capacity of PEMFC system (1kW) is enough to supply hot domestic water for residence, heat-up of reservior takes some hours. Therefore, in this study, time schedule of the simulation reflects the heat-up process. Dynamic responses and operating strategies of the PEMFC system are investigated during load changes.