Molten Carbonate Fuel Cell Gas Turbine Combined Cycle for Marine Propulsion: Part A — Design Point Operation
Molten Carbonate Fuel Cell/Gas Turbine (MCFC/GT) hybrid power systems could represent a modern, efficient and clean alternative to the currently used marine propulsion systems. The objective of this paper is to present the results of the study of a MCFC/GT hybrid power systems used on marine propulsion. The results are quite promising, but they are subjected to the current uncertainties derived from MCFCs early stage of development. Therefore, the interest of the authors is to summarise the research work done and the results, providing the understanding and a general view of the main concerns, benefits, identifying the next steps on the development of these systems. The study is summarised into two papers: “Molten Carbonate Fuel Cell Gas Turbine Combined Cycle for Marine Propulsion. Part A: Design Point Operation”, that describes the selection of the design point, and “Molten Carbonate Fuel Cell Gas Turbine Combined Cycle for Marine Propulsion. Part B: Part Load Operation” (Basurto et al., 2002), that describes the off-design performance of the system, and it compares the system against conventional diesel and gas turbine systems. The study is based on previous work published by the authors on the integration of MCFCs and gas turbines (Basurto et al., 2001).