Optimal cooperation of a hydrogen storage system and fuel cell to supply electrical and thermal loads

Abstract

A framework is planned to supply electrical and thermal loads by joint application of a hydrogen storage system (HSS) and a fuel cell. The system, including electrical and thermal loads, is connected to the upstream network. The bidirectional operation is defined for the system, and the system can buy energy from the grid or sell energy to the grid. A water electrolyzer is applied to produce hydrogen from water and store electricity in the form of hydrogen. The stored hydrogen supplies the thermal loads, as well as the fuel cell. The electrical loads are directly connected to the grid and are supplied by the grid. The electricity is received from the fuel cell at hours 17 to 22. When the price of electricity is high, the electrical loads can receive their power from the fuel cell rather than the grid. Additionally, any excess electricity may be sold to the grid. The uncertainty in the thermal and electrical loads is modeled and formulated as stochastic programming. The hydrogen is fed to the fuel cell and the thermal loads. The proposed model minimizes the daily operational cost of the system. The results demonstrate that the daily operational cost of the system is $22.274 USD/day. The bidirectional operation reduces the daily operational cost by about 79%. The unceratinty increases the cost by about 15%.