Abstract
In this paper, a new control of the DC–DC power converter that interfaces the fuel cell (FC) system with the DC bus of the photovoltaic (PV) power system is proposed to increase the battery lifespan by its operating in charge-sustained mode. Thus, the variability of the PV power and the load demand is compensated by the FC power generated considering the power flows balance on the DC bus. During peak PV power, if the PV power exceeds the load demand, then the excess power on the DC bus will power an electrolyzer. The FC system operation as a backup energy source is optimized using a new fuel economy strategy proposed for fueling regulators. The fuel optimization function considers the fuel efficiency and electrical efficiency of the FC system to maximize fuel economy. The fuel economy obtained in the scenarios considered in this study is compared with reference strategies reported in the literature. For example, under scenarios considered in this paper, the fuel economy is between 4.82–20.71% and 1.64–3.34% compared to a commercial strategy based on static feed-forward (sFF) control and an advanced strategy recently proposed in the literature, respectively.
Highlights
The issue of the decision to continue using fossil fuels is related to their still very high percentage in world energy production [1]
It is worth mentioning that the percentage decrease in fuel consumption for the proposed S2 strategy depends on the level of fuel cell (FC) power generated, being in range 4.82–20.71% and 1.64–3.34% compared to strategies S0 and S1, respectively
The new fuel economy strategy (S2 strategy) is proposed in this paper based on PF control and a new technique for switching input references for fuel regulators
Summary
The issue of the decision to continue using fossil fuels is related to their still very high percentage (about 80%) in world energy production [1]. I Control of the DC–DC power converter that interfaces the FC system with the DC bus to operate the battery stack in charge-sustained mode, increasing their life due to a limited number of charge–discharge cycles (which may occur if it is not used an electrolyzer to be powered by excess power from the DC bus; note that frequent charge–discharge cycles usually appear in a PV/ESS hybrid power system without the support of a backup energy source); a new power-following (PF) control is proposed based on the power flows balance on the DC bus;.
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