Environomic design for electric vehicles with an integrated solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) unit as a range extender

This article investigates an innovative concept of vehicle propulsion. An electric vehicle with limited battery packs is coupled with an innovative converter a Solid Oxide Fuel Cell with gas turbines system (SOFC-GT). This energy integrated converter is characterized by high energetic efficiency - around 70%, which includes also the integrated on board fuel reforming. Thus, the concept presents the advantage to extend the vehicle basic electric range thanks to this highly efficient converter. A second advantage is the reforming of a liquid fuel on board. Thus the H-2 storage is avoided. The liquid fuel is methane produced from biomass and liquefied at 200 bars pressure in the vehicle tank. The vehicle concept is modeled under Matlab/Simulink as a serial range extender. The innovative conversion system of the integrated reforming, SOFC and gas turbines modules (GT) is modeled with a map based approach. The range extender is so introduced into a standard electric vehicle. The innovative range extender vehicle is thus optimized according to techno-economic and environmental criteria. The optimization is performed on the vehicle for optimal mobility service. (C) 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.