Public energy company Korea Midland Power (KOMIPO) has partnered with a subsidiary of South Korea’s Doosan Group called Doosan Fuel Cell. They will collaborate on a demonstration project of a power generating system – called the Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC) – that creates electricity using residual heat generated by phosphoric acid fuel cells.
KOMIPO CEO, Park Hyung-koo, said:
This collaboration will serve as an opportunity to develop various follow-up projects through fuel cell power generation projects utilizing domestic technologies.
ORC is a type of turbogenerator that can convert thermal energy into mechanical energy. It does so by using residual heat generated by phosphoric acid fuel cells.
The demonstration project will take place at a 7.48-megawatt phosphoric acid fuel cell facility in the southwestern seaside city of Boryeong. They will apply an optimized ORC model to the facility and present a variety of clean-energy generation methods with it.
ORC generation is clean power generation. It simply reuses waste heat. It’s a commonly used method of thermal power generation that typically uses an organic, high molecular mass fluid that has a low boiling point. This fluid evaporates because of the heat generated by industrial waste heat, geothermal heat, or another residual heat. The evaporated gas turns turbines that generate electricity. Then, through the condensation process, the evaporated gas turns back into the original fluid.
Phosphoric acid fuel cells were the first type of fuel cell used for stationary power generators with an output between 100 kW to 400 kW. The cells use liquid phosphoric acid as an electrolyte.
Utilizing ORC makes use of heat energy that would have been wasted. It’s a win-win!
