Modelling of a solid oxide fuel cell CHP system coupled with a hot water storage tank for a single household

In this paper a solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) system for cogeneration of heat and power integrated with a stratified heat storage tank is studied. The use of a storage tank with thermal stratification allows one to increase the annual operating hours of CHP: heat can be produced when the request is low (for instance during the night), taking advantage of thermal stratification to increases the heat recovery performance. A model of the SOFC system is presented to estimate the energy required to meet the average electric energy demand of the residence. Two fuels are considered, namely syngas produced by gasification and natural gas. The tank model considers the temperature gradients over the tank height. The results of the numerical simulation are used to size the SOFC system and storage heat tank to provide energy for a small household using two different fuels. In particular it was shown that in the case of syngas, due to larger system heat output, a larger tank volume was required in order to accumulate unused heat over the night. The detailed description of the tank model will be useful to energy system modelers when sizing hot water tanks. Problem formulation is reported also using a Matlab script.