Fuzzy logic controller for hybrid renewable energy system with multiple types of storage

Abstract

The objective of this work is to design a scheme to control the power flow of a hybrid renewable energy system with multiple renewable energy sources (solar energy and wind energy) and multiple energy storage systems. The use of energy storage is necessary due to the intermittency of the renewable energy sources and the consequent peak power shift between the sources and the load. In addition, the use of the energy storage can increase the overall system reliability and stability. In this work, batteries are used as the primary energy storage system for short to medium storage term, while hydrogen fuel cell is used as the long-term energy storage. A supervisory control system is designed to handle various changes in power supply and power demand by managing power intermittency, power peak shaving, and long-term energy storage. Since both power supply and demand are not fully predictable and they have time variant nonlinear behavior, computational intelligence is introduced to solve this issue and provide suitable control algorithm. This type of control, based on fuzzy logic, combines knowledge of the system and control. The proposed methodology can be optimized such that the system is able to adapt to its working environment and deliver best results under given circumstances. For more realistic simulation results, the designed model utilizes real solar power data collected from the University of Queensland in Australia, while real wind power and load data was collected by the Alberta Electric System Operator in Alberta, Canada. The model of the system is designed and simulated in MATLAB SimPowerSystems™ to verify the effectiveness of the proposed scheme.