Abstract:

As a clean and efficient method of electricity generation, fuel cell is advantageous for high power efficiency, low pollution and noise, and good security, which is one of the most important technologies for distributed power generation. Fuel cell can not only consume the fossil energy like coal or natural gas, but also convert and store renewable energy with its inverse process. In the coal power industry, bulk coal can be utilized cleanly by direct carbon fuel cells, which can solve the problem of low efficiency and severe pollution from bulk coal. Besides, fuel cell can be integrated into natural gas network, forming a micro-combined heat and power system. Compared with the traditional heat and power supply systems, the combined heat and power system has the benefit of energy-step-utilization, with higher efficiency. Furthermore, electrolytic cells can convert the redundant renewable electricity into chemical energy, achieving the energy conversion and storage from the waste hydropower, wind power and solar power, which has great potential in the distributed renewable power system.

Key words: distributed energy supply, fuel cell, combined heat and power