Power control strategies of a DC-coupled hybrid power system for a building microgrid

In this paper, a DC-coupled photovoltaic (PV), fuel cell (FC) and ultracapacitor hybrid power system is studied for building microgrid. In this proposed system, the PV system provides electric energy to the electrolyzer to produce hydrogen for future use and transfer to the load side, if possible. Whenever the PV system cannot completely meet load demands, the FC system provides power to meet the remaining load. The main weak point of the FC system is slow dynamics, because the power slope is limited to prevent fuel starvation problems, improve performance and increase lifetime. A power management and control algorithm is proposed for the hybrid power system by taking into account the characteristics of each power source. The main works of this paper are hybridization of alternate energy sources with FC systems using long and short storage strategies to build an autonomous system with pragmatic design, and a dynamic model proposed for a PV/FC/UC bank hybrid power generation system. A simulation model for the hybrid power system has been developed using Matlab/Simulink, SimPowerSystems and Matlab/Stateflow. The system performance under the different scenarios has been verified by carrying out simulation studies using a practical load demand profile, hybrid power management and control, and real weather data.

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