Techno-economic and environmental assessment of integrating SOFC with a conventional steam and power system in a natural gas processing plant

Solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) technology has been proven to be a highly efficient electrochemical device that directly converts chemical energy into electrical energy with a potential to increase system efficiencies and to significantly reduce emissions in oil and gas operations. Enabling an effective integration and smarter utilization of SOFC systems at different scales and point-of-use can lead to an overall system efficiency improvement. In this research paper, two case studies, including the steam and power system in a gas plant, are considered for comparative analysis purposes. The first case study, base case, is a traditional steam and power system in a natural gas processing plant and the proposed case is the combined steam and power system with SOFC unit. Techno-economic and environmental analyses are performed for both cases. To carry out a comparative analysis, the power output of both cases is fixed at 20 MW. The results of this study show that a reduction of almost 35% in the emissions is possible and the cost of electricity becomes about 25% less for the proposed case.