Optimal Control based Energy Management Strategy of Photovoltaic/Fuel Cell/Supercapacitor Hybrid Power System

An energy management method for a hybrid power system based on optimal control is developed in this paper. The hybrid system is a set of a photovoltaic panel as the main energy source, a fuel cell and a storage system based on a supercapacitor power bank. The fuel cell has a weak point from the point of view of slow dynamics since the power slope is limited to avoid problems of lack of fuel cell. The very fast power response of a supercapacitor complements the slow power output of the fuel cell to produce the necessary compatibility and performance characteristics in a DC load. Each source is connected to a DC/DC converter. Optimal control has been processed to ensure power sharing between sources and load. In this article, the detailed description of the hybrid system, the modeling of the DC/DC converters and the optimal control are provided. Finally, numerical simulations under Matlab/Simulink are presented in order to validate the efficiency of the energy management algorithm.