High performance switched moded power conversion for photovoltaic integrated hydrogen based energy system

Abstract

Hydrogen-based energy systems have provided a different dimension for generating and storing green energy and it has a huge potential to contribute significantly to our future energy needs. The research on hydrogen fuel cell-based energy systems is vital as they combine the benefits of being highly efficient and byproduct is water ensuring green energy production. This work mainly focuses on developing high performance power converters for a solar photovoltaic integrated hydrogen fuel cell system. The solar photovoltaic output power is utilized to produce green hydrogen using an electrolysis unit, the produced hydrogen is stored in a storage tank and supplied to the fuel cell at a specified rate to meet the load demand. Two power electronic converters are required to realize this system. One is a buck converter to match the solar photovoltaic output with the electrolyzer input and second is a buck-boost converter for interfacing the fuel cell with the load. The closed loop voltage regulation of both converters is achieved with efficient proportional integral controllers. The whole system is modeled and simulated in MATLAB - SIMULINK environment. The simulation results shows that the converters are robust and efficient in their operation.