Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
Chapter 12
Management of a PEM Electrolyzer in Hybrid
Renewable Energy Systems
Antonio José Calderón, Isaías González and Manuel Calderón
12.1 Introduction
Hybrid power systems (HPS) refer to all systems that combine different energy
technologies (renewable energy sources, hydrogen, biomass, etc.) in order to meet
the required electrical and thermal loads of the consumer (Zervas et al. 2008 ).
One of the main problems of HPS is related to the control and supervision of the
energy distribution. There are power fluctuations due to the variability of renewable
energy, which cause disturbances that can affect the quality of the power delivered to
the load. The role of the controller is to control the interactions of the various system
components and the energy flow within the system to provide a stable and reliable
source of energy (Nema et al. 2009 ).
According to Ulleberg ( 2004 ), in order to find an optimum solution when
designing a hybrid system it is necessary to take into account both sizing of compo-
nents and the control strategy. The performance of the system can be significantly
affected by relatively small changes made in such strategy. In this sense, (Abedi
et al. 2012 ) state that the management strategy is so important that the operation,
reliability, cost and lifetime of the system is affected with even minor alterations
in the strategy. Bizon ( 2011 ) asseverates that the challenge for power management
control in HPS is to enhance the performance of all technologies working together
and to minimize the fuel consumption, while reducing the degradation of the fuel
cell stack.
Due to these reasons, the control strategy and the system for its implementa-
tion play a key role in the performance of HPS and in the quality and reliability of
the power supply. On the other hand, several authors Argumosa et al. ( 2010 ); Talpone
et al. ( 2012 ) remark the importance of a flexible and versatile control and monitoring
Search WWH ::




Custom Search