Optimal Power Management of Final Load and Electrolyser in a Solar Hydrogen Power Generation System

This paper describes a control unit for a solar-hydrogen power generation system that is capable of supplying an electrical load simultaneously with diverting excess power to an electrolyser to produce hydrogen gas for storage as backup energy. The functional requirements of such a control unit are defined. The transient response time for the PEM electrolyser is studied and analyzed through experimental testing. A design of load splitting device that also performs maximum power point tracking is proposed and its performance measured experimentally. Initial results suggest that the device can accomplish both the load splitting and maximum power point tracking functions satisfactorily.

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