Smart Energy Management of Multiple Full Cell Powered Applications

Abstract

DOE Project Officer:Mr. Stephen Waslo Objectives• To demonstrate the most effective design and protection scheme of minigrid power system for multiple fuel cell power plants application • To define the most economical operational schedule for the multiple fuel cell in terms of electrical, thermal and hydrogen production • To lay the bases for generation of hydrogen using the photoelectrochemical solar cells • To develop models for hydrogen production, purification, and storage systems • To demonstrate that smart energy management and control of a fuel cell power sources when subjected to varying demands of electrical and thermal loads together with demand of hydrogen production. Executive SummaryFuel cells, as a distributed energy source, are considered as one of the most promising sources of electrical energy that can meet the increasing demand and environmental constraints. To understand how the fuel cell behaves in a multi-unit generation environment, the research team designed a minigrid system with five fuel cells connected in parallel to feed five different neighborhoods. The thermal power, cogenerated from the fuel cells, is used to feed part of the neighborhood thermal load. In addition, the research team developed smart energy management control software to guarantee that the total power consumption of a typical residential home remains below the available power generated from a fuel cell. Generating hydrogen to feed the fuel cells is one of the main objectives of this project. New materials that help in producing hydrogen from water using sunlight are investigated. Another objective of this research is to investigate the application of small power fuel cells for portable applications. The research team investigated the feasibility of using fuel cells to feed the power to a laptop computer. In addition, using storage devices such as supercapacitor with the fuel cell to meet the sharp change in the laptop computer load is also investigated. Based on the economical analysis of the system and experimental results, we infer that a distributed energy system consisting of multiple fuel cells is a viable and feasible option to supply electrical and thermal power to a minigrid system. OverviewIn this research project the University of South Alabama research team has been investigating smart energy management and control of multiple fuel cell power sources when subjected to varying demands of electrical and thermal loads together with demands of hydrogen production. This research has focused on finding the optimal schedule of the multiple fuel cell power plants in terms of electric, thermal and hydrogen energy. The optimal schedule is expected to yield the lowest operating cost. Our team is also investigating the possibility of generating hydrogen using photoelectrochemical (PEC) solar cells through finding materials for efficient light harvesting photoanodes. The goal is to develop an efficient and cost effective PEC solar cell system for direct electrolysis of water. In addition, models for hydrogen production...