Power Research

Nilesh Shah ¹, R. Chudamani ²

Affiliations
1 Department of Electrical Engineering, Sarvajanik College of Engineering & Technology (SCET), Surat, Gujarat, IN
2 Department of Electrical Engineering, Sardar Vallabhbhai National Institute of Technology (SVNIT), Surat, Gujarat, IN

Abstract

In this paper, Photovoltaic (PV)-Fuel cell (FC) based grid interactive hybrid generation system is presented. The power generated by a PV system is highly dependent on weather condition. Hence, Fuel cell is used as back up source to supply the load demand along with PV under varying weather conditions. The PV-FC based hybrid generation system is developed using the model equations of PV and FC in the MATLAB/Simulink® environment. The PV-FC hybrid generation system is integrated with grid in two stages: dc-dc boost converter and three phase dc-ac inverter. Two separate dc-dc boost converters are used each with PV and FC system. In PV system, the dc-dc converter is used for Maximum Power Point (MPP) tracking and in FC system, the dc-dc converter is used for boosting the FC voltage. The MPP is tracked using fuzzy logic based controller under varying weather conditions. The power management algorithm proposed in this paper extracts and utilizes the maximum available power from PV array to supply the load demand. The FC is used to supply additional load demand higher than the maximum available PV power. The inverter injects the PV and FC power to load/grid in a controlled manner. The reference currents for current controller are generated using instantaneous power (p-q) theory. The hybrid generation system is tested under different load and weather conditions. The simulation results validate proposed power management algorithm for PV-FC based grid interactive hybrid generation system under varying environmental and load conditions.

Keywords

Photovoltaic system, Fuel Cell, Hybrid Generation, Grid integration, Power Management, Active and Reactive Power Control, Maximum Power Point Tracking.

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Nilesh Shah ¹, R. Chudamani ²

Affiliations
1 Research Scholar, Department of Electrical Engineering, SardarVallabhbhai National Institute of Technology (SVNIT), Surat, Gujarat, IN
2 Department of Electrical Engineering,SardarVallabhbhai National Institute of Technology (SVNIT), Surat, Gujarat, IN

Abstract

Photovoltaic (PV) panels are costlier and have poor efficiency in energy conversion. Therefore, it is essential to utilize a PV based system effectively. The characteristics of PV cell are very much nonlinear that show only one point corresponding to maximum power on P-V curve when the insolation is uniform. But in partial shading situations, the P-V curve shows many peaks among which only one point corresponds to the maximum power. In this paper, grid interactive PV system is proposed with active as well as reactive power control capability even under partial shading conditions using a novel global peak power point tracking algorithm based on fuzzy logic. The proposed PV system delivers active as well as reactive power in presence of sunlight. In the absence of sunlight and under low insolation, the inverter of the PV system provides compensation of load reactive power otherwise inverter remains unutilized. This improves the utility of PV system and thus enhances the efficiency of the system. The proposed system is simulated for different partial shading and changing load conditions using MATLAB/SIMULINKTM. The simulation outcomes authenticate the performance and effectiveness of the proposed system for active and reactive power flow control with the proposed control approach.

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