Enhanced control of a hydrogen energy storage system in a microgrid

Abstract

Renewable energy generation based microgrids have significantly increased their share of total energy production in recent times, and this is now leading to major restructuring of traditional electrical grid infrastructures. One critical issue is the intermittency of the available power from renewable energy sources, which has made energy storage systems (ESSs) an important component for microgrids. A hydrogen based energy storage system, consisting of an electrolyser, a hydrogen storage tank and a fuel-cell, is particularly attractive in this context since it can directly store energy from PV sources. This paper now explores the possibility of utilizing the electrolyser of this system for fast response short term energy storage to help support momentary power imbalance within the microgrid. This avoids the extra cost incurred by using more conventional fast storage elements, such as batteries or supercapacitors, and thus offers a more sustainable approach for a microgrid system.