Energy Management of a Multi-Source Power System

Omar Salah,Abdulrahim Shamayleh,Shayok Mukhopadhyay

doi:10.3390/a14070206

Abstract

This work focuses on energy management for a system operated by multiple energy sources which include batteries, super capacitors, a hydrogen fuel cell, and a photovoltaic cell. The overall objective is to minimize the power consumption from all sources needed to satisfy the system’s power demand by optimizing the switching between the different energy sources. A dynamic mathematical model representing the energy sources is developed taking into account the different constraints on the system, i.e., primarily the state-of-charge of the battery and the super capacitors. In addition to the model, a heuristic approach is developed and compared with the mathematical model. Both approaches were tested on a multi-energy source ground robot as a prototype. The novelty of this work is that the scheduling of an energy system consisting of four different types of sources is compared by performing analysis via dynamic programming, and a heuristic approach. The results generated using both methods are analyzed and compared to a standard mode of operation. The comparison validated that the proposed approaches minimize the average power consumption across all sources. The dynamic modeling approach performs well in terms of optimization and provided a superior switching sequence, while the heuristic approach offers the definite advantages in terms of ease of implementation and simple computation requirements. Additionally, the switching sequence provided by the dynamic approach was able to meet the power demand for all simulations performed and showed that the average power consumption across all sources is minimized.

Highlights

To limit the effects of pollution due to the use of fossil fuels, there is a move toward renewable and sustainable energy sources
The novelty of this work is that the scheduling of an energy system consisting of four different types of sources is compared by performing analysis via dynamic programming, and a heuristic approach
The results and analysis are presented for generating an optimal switching sequence between the energy sources for a system using the dynamic model and heuristic approaches

Summary

Introduction

To limit the effects of pollution due to the use of fossil fuels, there is a move toward renewable and sustainable energy sources. The transportation industry is responsible for consuming the most significant amount of fossil fuels, where “two-thirds of the oil used around the world currently goes to power vehicles, of which half goes to passenger cars and light trucks” [1]. The integration of multiple renewable and sustainable sources, along with traditional energy sources, has the potential to improve robustness to failures of individual types of power sources. This was the motivation of the researchers in [4] in developing a fuel-cell battery hybrid propulsion system for a small utility vehicle. This is of definite importance when considering islanded micro grid systems, where the objective is to have a variety of types of energy systems available to meet demand in the absence of a main power grid [5]

Methods

Results

Conclusion