Integrating PV-Fuel Cell for Efficient Energy Management

A reliable electrical energy supply is a prerequisite for improving the standard of economic and social quality of life in a country. India is a country full of villages and slums. In many occasions these remote areas are found to be inaccessible to the electric utility grid. Also, the conventional use of stand-alone diesel/other oil fed generators have witnessed a hike in fuel prices and resulted into enumerable environment issues. Under this perspective, renewable energy sources are gaining importance day by day in emerging energy sector. Photovoltaic (PV) energy is found to be an excellent clean renewable power generation technology which has already been recognized by the world. Besides PV, fuel cell (FC) is another technology which is capable of providing steady power with zero pollutant from different sources. Therefore, the amalgamation of PV/FC system through hybrid technology could be one of the potential alternatives for continuous and clean renewable power development. This paper presents an integrated performance analysis of PV/FC hybrid system. The study examines the seasonal variation of energy production, electrolyzer’s performance analysis, annualized mixed power output, power output sensitivity analysis etc. of the designed hybrid system