Modeling, Management, and Control of an Autonomous Wind/Fuel Cell Micro-Grid System

Abstract

This paper proposes a microelectric power grid that includes wind and fuel cell power generation units, as well as a water electrolyzer for producing hydrogen gas. The grid is loaded by an induction motor (IM) as a dynamic load and constant impedance load. An optimal control algorithm using the Mine Blast Algorithm (MBA) is designed to improve the performance of the proposed renewable energy system. Normally, wind power is adapted to feed the loads at normal circumstances. Nevertheless, the fuel cell compensates extra load power demand. An optimal controller is applied to regulate the load voltage and frequency of the main power inverter. Also, optimal vector control is applied to the IM speed control. The response of the microgrid with the proposed optimal control is obtained under step variation in wind speed, load impedance, IM rotor speed, and motor mechanical load torque. The simulation results indicate that the proposed renewable generation system supplies the system loads perfectly and keeps up the desired load demand. Furthermore, the IM speed performance is acceptable under turbulent wind speed.Processes 2019, 7, 85 2 of 21 renewable energy resources for electrical power production showed that wind energy is the first choice [8].Renewable energy systems may be classified into grid-connected systems and standalone systems. The present capacities of the grid-connected renewable energy systems vary from several kilowatts of residential PV systems to large-scale wind farms. The grid-connected systems do not need any storage as the generated energy is injected directly to the grid. These systems are suitable for urban regions where the grid is available. However, standalone systems are suitable for rural areas, where grid extension is not feasible. In standalone renewable energy systems, the load is an individual house and not connected to a grid. The capacities of these systems are usually small. In some applications, several houses are connected to form a small power grid called microgrids (MGs) [9,10]. Microgrid technology has become popular in islands as it provides a cost-effective alternative where power grid extension is expensive and fuel transportation is difficult and costly [11,12].The major obstacle for utilizing one technology of renewable energy sources is the intermittent nature of that source. That intermittent behavior of the renewable energy sources comes from the strong dependency on the environmental conditions, which are changing continuously. A suggestion to solve the intermittency problem of the renewable energy systems is the use of energy storage element. Energy storage units are classified as capacity-oriented storage systems and access-oriented storage systems. The capacity-oriented storage systems include pumped hydroelectric storage, compressed air energy storage, and hydrogen storage systems. It has a slow response and is considered long-term energy storage. Batteries, superconducting magnetic energy storage, supercapacitors, and flywheels are considered access-oriented storage s...

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