Design and dispatch optimization of a solid-oxide fuel cell assembly for unconventional oil and gas production (Q2315097)

The authors present a design and dispatch optimization model concerning a solid-oxide fuel cell and especially a geothermic fuel cell (GFC). The design problem consists in a minimization problem for an objective function: minimize \(w\cdot \dot{W}^{\mathrm{sup}}-\alpha_{1}c^{\mathrm{drill}}L^{\mathrm{GFC}}+\alpha_{2}C^{\mathrm{total}}\), where \(w\) represents the unit cost of electricity, \(\dot{W}^{\mathrm{sup}}\) is the supplemental electricity power, \(c^{\mathrm{drill}}\) is the drilling cost per unit length, \(L^{\mathrm{GFC}}\) is the length of the GFC and \( C^{\mathrm{total}}\) is the total cost of the construction of the system. The authors introduce different constraints involving parameters and variables such as heat exchangers, pressure drops, capital costs. The dispatch problem also consists in a minimization problem for an objective function: minimize \( C^{\mathrm{fuel}}+w\sum_{t}(\widehat{t}_{t}\cdot \dot{W}^{\mathrm{sup}})-\sum_{t}C^{NG}\cdot V_{t}^{\mathrm{use}}\cdot (\mathcal{E}_{t}^{\mathrm{elec}}+\mathcal{E}_{t}^{\mathrm{heat}})\), which is a linear combination of the system operating costs and of the supplemental electric power, less the sum of the GFC electrical and heating efficiencies at each time period. The authors here also introduce constraints which involve different parameters and variables. They observe that the problems are continuous, non-convex, and nonlinear ones. They present different strategies and tools to solve these problems, among which is the KNITRO solver, and they compare their efficiencies. The paper ends with an example.