Design and analysis of photovoltaic/wind operations at MPPT for hydrogen production using a PEM electrolyzer: Towards innovations in green technology

Abstract

In recent times, renewable energy systems (RESs) such as Photovoltaic (PV) and wind turbine (WT) are being employed to produce hydrogen. This paper aims to compare the efficiency and performance of PV and WT as sources of RESs to power polymer electrolyte membrane electrolyzer (PEMEL) under different conditions. The study assessed the input/output power of PV and WT, the efficiency of the MPPT controller, the calculation of the green hydrogen production rate, and the efficiency of each system separately. The study analyzed variable irradiance from 600 to 1000 W/m2 for a PV system and a fixed temperature of 25°C, while for the WT system, it considered variable wind speed from 10 to 14 m/s and zero fixed pitch angle. The study demonstrated that the applied controllers were effective, fast, low computational, and highly accurate. The obtained results showed that WT produces twice the PEMEL capacity, while the PV system is designed to be equal to the PEMEL capacity. The study serves as a reference for designing PV or WT to feed an electrolyzer. The MATLAB program validated the proposed configurations with their control schemes.