An Energy Management Strategy and Fuel Cell Configuration Proposal for a Hybrid Renewable System with Hydrogen Backup

Abstract

This paper presents a new and optimal proposal of energy management strategy for a solar panels/wind turbines/fuel cell/battery/alkaline electrolyzer on grid hybrid power system. These new proposal takes into account technical and economical optimization parameters, improving the system performance, the lifetime of different elements and reducing operation and maintenance cost. The features of the proposed energy management strategy are compared over other strategies found in the scientific literature. Additionally, another key parameter like fuel cell modularity has been considered. That is the effect over the whole system performance of using a single fuel cell with high rate power (PFC) versus a modular configuration built from n stacks with PFC/n rate power each one. Then, joining the new proposed strategy with the optimization parameter regarding the fuel cell modularity, it is possible to get the best solution for this kind of hybrid systems.