The International Maritime Organization (IMO) has imposed strict emission guidelines for the shipping industry to meet the Paris agreement. This has led the maritime industry to search for alternative fuels and prime movers. An electric propulsion system powered with a Solid Oxide Fuel Cell (SOFC)-Internal Combustion Engine (ICE) is one of the possible solutions. In such a system the SOFC is made to run at a constant load while the engine is expected to cover the transient loads.
The main purpose of the thesis is to get an insight into the optimum power split required between Solid Oxide Fuel Cell (SOFC) and Internal Combustion Engine (ICE) for a particular maritime load profile. This has been achieved by analyzing system performance of three different power split configurations (30-70, 50-50,70-30) between SOFC and ICE. The operational profiles from three different case studies have been considered; Cruise, Oil tanker and Yacht. The system analysis has been performed with steady state results for SOFC-ICE system modeled in Matlab Simulink. SOFC has been modeled as 1D model with 3 elements whereas, the engine has been modeled as a lookup table with datasheets for two stroke dual fuel CI engine. From the power split study it has been found that, in general, the ship with high frequency of full load operation benefits from a large installed SOFC and the ships with high frequency of anchoring load or part load benefits from small installed SOFC power. Owing to large heat demand, the Cruise ship benefits the most from the SOFC-ICE system. A 50-50 power split or SOFC installed at base load for a Cruise ship leads to carbon emission reduction by almost 56% compared to diesel electric system while achieving a system efficiency (heat and power) of 74%. Thus, the SOFC-ICE system running on natural gas can help in reducing the emissions by almost 50% while allowing high electrical and system efficiencies. Thus, allowing the maritime industry to attain the greenhouse gas emission and energy efficiency goals. With commercialization of green hydrogen and storage, the system could also help in achieving the zero emission goals.