Hydrogen vs. Battery in the Long-term Operation. A Comparative Between Energy Management Strategies for Hybrid Renewable Microgrids

Abstract

The growth of the world’s energy demand over recent decades in relation to energy intensity and demography is clear. At the same time, the use of renewable energy sources is pursued to address decarbonization targets, but the stochasticity of renewable energy systems produces an increasing need for management systems to supply such energy volume while guaranteeing, at the same time, the security and reliability of the microgrids. Locally distributed energy storage systems (ESS) may provide the capacity to temporarily decouple production and demand. In this sense, the most implemented ESS in local energy districts are small–medium-scale electrochemical batteries. However, hydrogen systems are viable for storing larger energy quantities thanks to its intrinsic high mass-energy density. To match generation, demand and storage, energy management systems (EMSs) become crucial. This paper compares two strategies for an energy management system based on hydrogen-priority vs. battery-priority for the operation of a hybrid renewable microgrid. The overall performance of the two mentioned strategies is compared in the long-term operation via a set of evaluation parameters defined by the unmet load, storage efficiency, operating hours and cumulative energy. The results show that the hydrogen-priority strategy allows the microgrid to be led towards island operation because it saves a higher amount of energy, while the battery-priority strategy reduces the energy efficiency in the storage round trip. The main contribution of this work lies in the demonstration that conventional EMS for microgrids’ operation based on battery-priority strategy should turn into hydrogen-priority to keep the reliability and independence of the microgrid in the long-term operation.

Hybrid Intelligent Modelling in Renewable Energy Sources-Based Microgrid. A Variable Estimation of the Hydrogen Subsystem Oriented to the Energy Management Strategy

“…The facility also has programmable power sources and loads, and three energy storage systems: a supercapacitor and battery bank, and a hydrogen loop made up of an electrolyzer (hydrogen production), fuel cell stacks (hydrogen consumption), as well as hydrogen storage in the form of pressure gas or metal hydride compound. The interconnection between each of the microgrid subsystems and the different power buses is carried out using commercial and customized power electronics devices specially designed for the application [23].…”

“…The production of clean energy, with zero CO 2 emissions, and the microgrid concept are closely related. A microgrid is responsible for managing energy flows from renewable production to and from storage systems and consumers [23,24].…”

Economic Analysis of Hydrogen Household Energy Systems Including Incentives on Energy Communities and Externalities: A Case Study in Italy

“…Moreover, in recent years many studies were conducted with the aim to explore FCs flexibility, coupling them with a variety of renewable energy systems. Several different optimization models are used for on-grid [21][22][23][24][25][26][27] and off-grid [28][29][30][31][32] hybrid systems.…”

Integration of a Multi-Stack Fuel Cell System in Microgrids: A Solution Based on Model Predictive Control

“…Given the stochasticity of most RES (e.g., solar, wind, etc. ), FCs, along with energy storage systems (ESSs), can be used to mitigate the intermittency induced by stochastic RES, and they serve as an effective solution due to their reliable output power [7]. However, despite these numerous advantages, the integration of FCs into microgrids requires an exhaustive energy management system (EMS) that takes into account the low durability and high cost of FCs [8], at the time that guarantees crucial features like reliability, resiliency, and safety, more and more crucial in microgrids [9,10].…”