Different plant alternatives (Simple Cycle Gas Turbine, Gas Micro-Turbine, Gas Internal Combustion Engine, Fuel Cells) in the optimization procedure are taken into account with the aim of determining the optimal typology, size and operative strategy of the trigeneration system.
Since they are much cleaner than internal combustion engines, fuel cells are seen by proponents as the ideal alternative.
Distributed generation systems use low-emission gas reciprocating engines, fuel cells and turbines to create electricity, while also capturing the heat normally lost during power generation for industrial processes.
Compared with the conventional combustion engines, fuel cells have a higher fuel conversion and electrical efficiency producing additionally less toxic emissions [3, 5].
The optimization formulation considers internal combustion engines, fuel cells, microturbines, Stirling engines, solar water heaters, and absorption chillers as technology options.
Active hybrid power sources can be used to power hybrid electric vehicles with selected combinations of internal combustion engines, fuel cells, batteries, and/or supercapacitors.
Indeed, a modular series-hybrid drivetrain can be made adaptable to a range of primary power sources such as an internal combustion engine or fuel cell engine.
Ditto for the enormous cost of new technology, hybrid engines, hydrogen fuel cell engines and electric cars.
Prime movers such as gas turbine, steam turbine, micro turbine, reciprocate engine and fuel cell are compared in terms of size (kW), efficiency and principal operation.
In recent years a lot of research has been done about electric Hybrid Vehicles (HV) (including those with internal combustion engine or fuel cell).
