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There are several small energy sources that can be exploited to provide useful energy: small temperature differences, mechanical vibrations, flow variations, latent exhausts are just some examples. The recovery of such common and small energy sources, usually wasted, for example with the conversion into useful amounts of electrical energy, is called energy harvesting. Energy harvesting allows low-power embedded devices to be powered from naturally-occurring or unwanted environmental energy (e.g. pressure or temperature difference). The main aim in the last years of researches in such field, was the increasing of the efficiency of such components, with a higher power output and a smaller size. At present, a wide range of systems incorporating energy harvesters are now available commercially, all of them specific to certain types of energy source. Energy harvesting from dissipation processes such as fluid lamination is a challenge for many different applications. In addition, control valves to dissipate overpressures are common usage of many plants and systems. This paper surveys the market opportunities of such harvesting systems, considering the trade-offs affecting their efficiency, their applicability, and ease of deployment. Particular attention will be devoted to small energy harvesters than can exploit small expansions, such as from lamination valves or to systems that can feed mini sensors from small pressure drops, promising compactness, efficiency and cost effectiveness.

Nowadays the research in energy field is focused on conversion technologies which could achieve higher efficiencies and lower environmental impact. Among these, fuel cells are considered an extremely promising technology and pressurized solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) systems are particularly attractive for their high electric efficiency, potential for cogeneration applications, low carbon emissions and high performance at part-load. This paper aims to perform a robust design of an innovative turbocharged hybrid system model, featuring components validated with industrial data, where a turbocharger is used to pressurize the fuel cell, promising better cost effectiveness than a microturbine-based hybrid system, at small scales. This study will evaluate the impact of the main operating parameters (fuel cell area, stack current density and recuperator surface) on the plant performance, considering uncertainties in the system and creating a response surface of the model to perform the study. Finally, a study of the operating costs of such plant is performed to evaluate its profitability in the Italian market scenario.