IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ENERGY CONVERSION, VOL. 23, NO.

3, SEPTEMBER 2008

957

Power Management of a Stand-Alone

Wind/Photovoltaic/Fuel Cell Energy System
Caisheng Wang, Senior Member, IEEE, and M. Hashem Nehrir, Senior Member,
IEEE

AbstractThis paper proposes an ac-linked hybrid wind/

photovoltaic (PV)/fuel cell (FC) alternative energy system for
stand-alone applications. Wind and PV are the primary power
sources of the system, and an FCelectrolyzer combination is
used as a backup and a long-term storage system. An overall
power management strategy is designed for the proposed system
to man- age power flows among the different energy sources and
the storage unit in the system. A simulation model for the hybrid
energy system has been developed using MATLAB/Simulink. The
system perfor- mance under different scenarios has been verified
by carrying out simulation studies using a practical load demand
profile and real weather data.

Color versions of one or more of the figures in this paper are available online
at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TEC.2007.914200

Index TermsAlternative energy, electrolyzer, fuel cell (FC),

hybrid, photovoltaic (PV), power management, stand-alone,
wind.

I. INTRODUCTION

HE EVER increasing energy consumption, the soaring

cost and the exhaustible nature of fossil fuel, and the
worsening global environment have created increased interest
in green [renewable and/or fuel celll (FC)-based energy
sources] power generation systems. Wind and solar power
generation are two of the most promising renewable power
generation tech- nologies. The growth of wind and
photovoltaic (PV) power generation systems has exceeded
the most optimistic estima- tion [1][3]. FCs also show great
potential to be green power sources of the future because of
many merits they have (such as high efficiency, zero or low
emission of pollutant gases, and flexible modular structure)
and the rapid progress in FC tech- nologies. However, each
of the aforementioned technologies has its own drawbacks.
For instance, wind and solar power are highly dependent on
climate while FCs need hydrogen-rich fuel. Nevertheless,
because different alternative energy sources can complement
each other to some extent, multisource hybrid alter- native
energy systems (with proper control) have great potential to
provide higher quality and more reliable power to customers
than a system based on a single resource. Because of this feature, hybrid energy systems have caught worldwide research
attention [4][28].
Manuscript received August 14, 2006; revised December 27, 2006. This
work was supported in part by the National Science Foundation (NSF) Grant
ECS0135229 and in part by the HiTEC fuel cell project at Montana State
University,
funded by the United States Department of Energy, as a subcontract from Battelle Memorial Institute and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL)
under Award DE-AC06-76RL01830. Paper No. TEC-00399-2006.
C. Wang is with the Division of Engineering Technology, Wayne State University,
Detroit,
MI
48202
USA
(e-mail:
caisheng.wang@gmail.com).
M. H. Nehrir is with the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department,
Montana State University, Bozeman, MT 59717 USA (e-mail: hnehrir@
ece.montana.edu).
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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ENERGY CONVERSION, VOL. 23, NO. 3, SEPTEMBER 2008

Many alternative energy sources including wind, PV, FC,

diesel system, gas turbine, and microturbine can be used to
build a hybrid energy system [4][28]. Nevertheless, the
major renewable energy sources used and reported are wind
and PV power [4][28]. Due to the intermittent nature of
wind and solar energy, stand-alone wind and PV energy
systems normally require energy storage devices or some
other generation sources to form a hybrid system. The storage
device can be a battery bank, supercapacitor bank,
superconducting magnetic energy storage (SMES), or an FC
electrolyzer system.
In this paper, a stand-alone hybrid alternative energy
system consisting of wind, PV, FC, electrolyzer, and battery is
proposed. Wind and PV are the primary power sources of the
system to take full advantage of renewable energy, and the
FCelectrolyzer combination is used as a backup and a longterm storage system. A battery bank is also used in the system
for short-time backup to supply transient power. The different
energy/storage sources in the proposed system are integrated
through an ac link bus. The details of the system
configuration, system unit-sizing, and the characteristics of
the major system components are also discussed in the paper.
An overall power management strategy is designed for the
system to coordinate the power flows among the different
energy sources. Simulation studies have been carried out to
verify the system performance under different scenarios using

957

practical load profile and real weather data.

The paper is organized as follows. The system configuration
and system unit-sizing are discussed in Section II. The system
component characteristics are given in Section III. Section IV
discusses the overall power management strategy for the
system. Section V gives the simulation results. Section VI
concludes the paper.
II. SYSTEM CONFIGURATION AND UNIT-SIZING
A. System Configuration
Fig. 1 shows the system configuration for the proposed hybrid alternative energy system. In the system, the renewable
wind and PV power are taken as the primary source while the
FCelectrolyzer combination is used as a backup and storage
system. This system can be considered as a complete green
power generation system because the main energy sources and
storage system are all environmentally friendly. When there is
excess wind and/or solar generation available, the electrolyzer
turns on to begin producing hydrogen, which is delivered to
the hydrogen storage tanks. If the H2 storage tanks become
full, the excess power will be diverted to the dump load shown
in Fig. 1. When there is a deficit in power generation, the FC
stack will begin to produce energy using hydrogen from the
reservoir

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958

IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ENERGY CONVERSION, VOL. 23, NO. 3, SEPTEMBER 2008

Fig. 2. Hourly average demand of five typical homes in the Pacific

Northwest area.

Fig. 1. System configuration of the proposed multisource alternative hybrid

energy system (coupling inductors are not shown).

tanks, or in case they are empty, from the backup H2 tanks. A

battery bank is also used in the system to supply transient
power to load transients, ripples, and spikes. There are several
ways to integrate different alternative energy sources to form a
hybrid system. Each method has its own advantages and
disadvantages. In this paper, a 60 Hz ac link is used due to its
high reliability, modular and scalable structure, and readiness
for grid connec- tion [25], [27]. Different energy sources are
connected to the ac bus through appropriate power electronic
interfacing circuits. The system can be easily expended, i.e.,
other energy sources can be integrated into the system when
they are available, as shown in Fig. 1. The main system unitsizing is discussed in the following section.
B. System Unit-Sizing
The unit-sizing procedure discussed in this section is
assumed for a stand-alone hybrid system with the proposed
structure
(Fig. 1) for residential electricity supply in the southwestern
part of Montana. The purpose of the study is to properly size
the system components to assure reliable electricity supply.
Hence,
the systems economic aspect is not considered in the paper.

The hybrid system is designed to supply power to five

homes. A typical hourly average residential load demand for a
home in the Pacific Northwest regions, reported in [29], is
used in this simulation study. The total hourly average load
demand of the five homes is shown in Fig. 2. A 50 kW wind
turbine is assumed to be available for the hybrid system. The
following unit-sizing procedure is used to determine the size
of the PV array, FC stack, electrolyzer, and the battery.
Before the discussion of unit-sizing, the following concept
is applied for indicating the overall efficiency and the
availability of a renewable energy source.
Capacity factor (kcf ) of a renewable energy source is defined
as
P
kcf =
(1)

Pra te d
where P is the actual average output power over a period of
time and Pra te d is the nominal power rating of the renewable
energy source.
For the wind and solar data reported in [5] and [20], the
capac- ity factor of the wind turbine (kcf wtg ) and the PV array
(kcf PV ) used in the proposed hybrid system for the
southwestern part of Montana are taken as 13% and 10%,
respectively.
The purpose of unit-sizing is to minimize the difference between the generated power (Pge n ) from the renewable
energy source and the demand (Pde m ) over a period of time
T . T is taken as one year in this study:
P = Pge
Pde m
= kcf

wtg

Pwtg ,ra te d + kcf

PV

PPV ,ra te d Pde m

(2)

where Pwtg ,ra te d is the power rating of the wind turbine generator and PPV ,ra te d is the power rating of the PV array.
To balance the generation and demand, the rated power for
the PV array is
k
Pwtg ,ra te d
P
PPV ,ra te d = de m cf wtg
.
(3)

kcf PV
Some details on the economics of similar wind/PV/FC

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systems are given in another paper by the authors [5].

IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ENERGY CONVERSION, VOL. 23, NO. 3, SEPTEMBER 2008

From Fig. 2, the average load demand is 9.76 kW. Then,

according to (3), the size of the PV array is calculated to be
32.6 kW.

WANG AND NEHRIR: POWER MANAGEMENT OF A STAND-ALONE WIND/PHOTOVOLTAIC/FUEL CELL ENERGY

SYSTEM

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TABLE I
SYSTEM COMPONENT PARAMETERS

Fig. 3.

C p characteristics of the WECS at different pitch angles ().

Battery capacity can be determined based on the transient

power at the load site. In this study, a 10 kWh battery bank
is used. In single-phase systems, a larger size battery may be
needed for reactive power compensation purposes. In threephase systems, as discussed in this paper, reactive power compensation can be achieved by proper control of power
electronic switching devices [39], and only a small size battery
is needed for this purpose [40].
The details of the system component parameters are listed in
Table I.
III. SYSTEM COMPONENT CHARACTERISTICS
To develop an overall power management strategy for the
sys- tem and to investigate the system performance, dynamic
models for the main components in the proposed hybrid
system have been developed using MATLAB/Simulink [27].
The models are for the following: wind energy conversion
system (WECS), PV, FC, and electrolyzer.
In this section, the characteristics of the aforementioned
main system components are discussed. For the details of
model de- velopment, the reader is referred to [27].
A. Wind Energy Conversion System
The FCelectrolyzer combination provides backup for the
system. The FC needs to supply the peak load demand (Fig. 2)
when there is no wind and solar power. Therefore, the size of
the FC stack is 14.6 kW. To leave some safe margin (20%
used in this paper), an 18 kW FC array is used.
The electrolyzer should be able to handle the excess power
from the wind and solar power source. The maximum possible
excess power is
Pge n , m a x Pde m ,m in = 50 + 32.6 5.85 = 76.75 kW.
(4) However, the possibility that both wind and solar power
reach
their maximum points while the load demand is at its lowest
value is very small. According to the data reported in [26], the
excess available power normally is less than half of the maximum possible value. And the electrolyzer is also very
expensive. Therefore, a 50 kW electrolyzer [over 60% of the
maximum available given in (4)] is used in this paper.

The power Pwin d (in watts) extracted from wind is

1
Pw in d =
Av 3 C
(5)
p (, )
2
where is the air density in kilogram per cubic meter, A is the
area swept by the rotor blades in square meter, and v is the
wind velocity in meters per second. Cp is called the power
coefficient or the rotor efficiency and is a function of tip speed
ratio (TSR or ) and pitch angle () [30], [31].
A variable-speed pitch-regulated wind turbine is considered
in this paper, where the pitch angle controller plays an
important role. Fig. 3 shows the groups of Cp curves of the
wind turbine used in this study at different pitch angles [31]. It
is noted from the figure that the value of Cp can be changed
by changing the pitch angle (). In other words, the output
power of the wind turbine can be regulated by pitch angle
control.
A self-excited induction generator (SEIG) model [27], [37],
[38] was developed and used as a part of the WECS model.
The ratings of the SEIG are given in Table I.

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Fig. 4.

IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ENERGY CONVERSION, VOL. 23, NO. 3, SEPTEMBER 2008

Wind turbine output power characteristic.

Fig. 4 shows the output power of the WECS vs. wind speed.
It can be observed that the output power is kept constant when
wind speed is higher than the rated wind velocity even though
the wind turbine has the potential to produce more power. This
is done through the pitch angle control to protect the electrical
system and to prevent over speeding of the rotor. When wind
speed is higher than the cutout speed (25 m/s), the system is
taken out of operation for protection of its components.

Fig. 5.

IV characteristic curves of the PV model at different irradiances.

B. Photovoltaic
PV effect is a basic physical process through which solar
energy is converted directly into electrical energy. The physics
of a PV cell, or a solar cell, is similar to the classical p-n
junction diode [32]. The relationship between the output
voltage V and the load current I of a PV cell or a module
can be expressed as [15], [32]
I = IL I0 exp

V + IRs
1

(6)

where IL is the light current of the PV cell (in amperes), I0 is

the saturation current, I is the load current, V is the PV output
voltage (in volts), Rs is the series resistance of the PV cell (in
ohms), and is the thermal voltage timing completion factor
of the cell (in volts).
The IV characteristic curves of the PV model used in this
study under different irradiances (at 25 C) are given in Fig. 5
[27]. It is noted from the figure that the higher the irradiance,
the larger are the short-circuit current (Isc ) and the opencircuit voltage (Vo c ). As a result, the larger will be the output
PV power. Temperature plays an important role in the PV
performance because the four parameters (IL , I0 , Rs , and )
in (6) are all functions of temperature. The effect of the
temperature on the PV model performance is illustrated in Fig.
6. It is noted from the figure that the lower the temperature, the
higher is the maximum
power and the larger the open circuit voltage.
C. Fuel Cell
Two types of FCs have been modeled for this study. They
are low-temperature proton-exchange membrane FC (PEMFC)
[33] and high-temperature solid oxide FC (SOFC) [34]. Both
of

Fig. 6. PV characteristic curves of the PV model at different operating temperatures.

them show great potential in hybrid energy system

applications. For the purpose of simplicity, only the PEMFC
application is discussed in this paper.
The PEMFC model is based on the validated dynamic
model for a PEMFC stack reported in [33]. It is an
autonomous model operated under constant channel pressure
with no control on the input fuel flow into the FC. The model
was validated by experimental data measured from an Avista
Labs (ReliOn now) SR-12 500 W PEMFC stack. The FC will
adjust the input fuel flow according to its load current to keep
the channel pressure constant. Fig. 7 shows the output voltage
vs. load current (VI) characteristic curve of the 500 W
PEMFC model compared with the experimental data [33].
This characteristic curve can be divided into three regions.
The voltage drop across the FC associated with low currents is
due to the activation loss inside the FC; the voltage drop in the
middle of the curve (which is approximately linear) is due to
the ohmic loss in the FC stack; and as a result of the
concentration loss, the output voltage at the end of the curve
will drop sharply as the load current increases.

WANG AND NEHRIR: POWER MANAGEMENT OF A STAND-ALONE WIND/PHOTOVOLTAIC/FUEL CELL ENERGY

SYSTEM

Fig. 8.
tures.

Fig. 7. PEMFC VI characteristic: comparison of model response with

exper- imental data.

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VI characteristics of the electrolyzer model under different tempera-

IV. OVERALL POWER MANAGEMENT STRATEGY

D. Electrolyzer
An electrolyzer is a device that produces hydrogen and oxygen from water. Water electrolysis can be considered a reverse
process of a hydrogen-fueled FC. In contrast to the electrochemical reaction occurring in an FC to produce dc electricity,
an electrolyzer converts dc electrical energy into chemical energy stored in hydrogen. From electrical circuit point of view,
an electrolyzer can be considered as a voltage-sensitive
nonlinear dc load [15]. For a given electrolyzer, within its
rating range, the higher the dc voltage applied, the larger is the
load current. That is, by applying a higher dc voltage, more H2
can be generated. Of course, more electrical power is
consumed at the same time. The model of an electrolyzer stack
developed for this study is based on the empirical IV
equation reported in [15] and [26], described as
r1 + r2 T
Velec ,cell = Vre v +
+ kelec ln

I
A
kT 1 + kT 2 /T + kT 3 /T
2

I +1

(7)

A
where Velec ,cell is the cell terminal voltage (in volts), Vre v is
the reversible cell voltage, r1 (in ohms square-meter) and r2
(in ohms square-meter per degree Celsius) are the parameters
for the ohmic resistance inside the electrolyzer, kelec (in volts),
kT 1 (in square meters per ampere), kT 2 (square-meter degrees
Celsius per ampere), and kT 3 (square-meter degree Celsius
square per ampere) are the parameters for the overvoltage, A is
the area of the cell electrode (in square-meters), I is the
electrolyzer current (in amperes), and T is the cell temperature
(in degrees Celsius). The VI characteristics of the electrolyzer
model used in this study at different cell temperatures are
given in Fig. 8. At a given current, the higher the operating
temperature, the lower is

An overall control strategy for power management among

dif- ferent energy sources in a multisource energy system is
needed. Fig. 9 shows the block diagram of the overall control
strategy for the proposed hybrid alternative energy system.
The WECS, controlled by a pitch angle controller, and a PV
electricity gen- eration unit, controlled by a maximum power
point tracking (MPPT) controller (not discussed in this paper)
[27], are the main energy sources of the system. The power
difference be- tween the generation sources and the load
demand is calculated as
Pne t = Pwin d + PPV Pload Psc

(8)

where Pwin d is the power generated by the WECS, PPV is the

power generated by the PV energy conversion system, Pload
is the load demand, and Psc is the self-consumed power for
operating the system. The system self-consumed power is the
power consumed by the auxiliary system components to keep
it running, for example, the power needed for running the
cool- ing systems, the control units, and the gas compressor.
For the
purpose of simplification, only the power consumed by the
com- pressor (Pco m p ) is considered in this study.
The governing control strategy is that, at any given time, any
excess wind and PV-generated power (Pne t > 0) is supplied
to the electrolyzer to generate hydrogen that is delivered to
the
the terminal voltage needed.

WANG AND NEHRIR: POWER MANAGEMENT OF A STAND-ALONE WIND/PHOTOVOLTAIC/FUEL CELL ENERGY

SYSTEM storage tanks through a gas compressor.
hydrogen
Therefore, the power balance equation given in (8) can be
written as

Pwin d + PPV = Pload + Pelec + Pco m p ,

Pne t > 0 (9)

where Pelec is the power consumed by the electrolyzer to

gener- ate H2 and Pco m p is the power consumed by the gas
compressor. When there is a deficit in power generation (Pne
t < 0), the FC stack begins to produce energy for the load
using hydrogen from the storage tanks. Therefore, the power
balance equation
for this situation can be written as
Pwin d + PPV + PFC = Pload ,

Pne t < 0

where PFC is the power generated by the FC stack.

(10)

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Fig. 9.

IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ENERGY CONVERSION, VOL. 23, NO. 3, SEPTEMBER 2008

Block diagram of the overall control scheme for the proposed hybrid alternative energy system.

Dynamic models have been used for all the components of

the system shown in Fig. 9. The details of these models can be
found in [27].

V. SIMULATION RESULTS
Using the component models discussed in Section IV, a
simulation system test bed for the proposed wind/PV/FC
electrolyzer energy system has been developed using
MATLAB/Simulink. In order to verify the system
performance under different situations, simulation studies have
been carried out using practical load demand data and real
weather data (wind speed, solar irradiance, and air
temperature). As dis- cussed in Section II, the system is
designed to supply electric power demand of five houses in
the southwestern part of Montana. A typical hourly average
load demand for a house in the Pacific Northwest regions,
reported in [29], is used in this simulation study. The total
hourly average load demand profile of five houses over 24 h is
shown in Fig. 2. The weather data are obtained from the online
records of the weather station at Deer Lodge, Montana,
affiliated with the Pacific Northwest Coopera- tive Agricultural
Weather Network (AgriMet) [35]. Simulation studies are
carried out for power management during a typical winter day
and a summer day. The load demand is kept the same for the
two cases. Simulation results for the winter and summer
scenarios are given and discussed in the following section.

A. Winter Scenario
1) Weather Data: The weather data for the winter scenario
simulation were collected on February 1, 2006. The wind
speed data were collected at the height of 2 m, corrected to the
turbine hub height (assumed to be 40 m) using the following
expression [20], [36]:
Ws 1 = Ws 0

H1
H0

(11)

where Ws 1 (in meters per second) is the wind speed at the hub
height H1 (in meters), Ws 0 (in meters per second) is the wind
speed at the height H0 (in meters), and is the wind speed
correction exponent. The exponent is taken as 0.13 in this
study, as suggested and used in [20] and [36].
Fig. 10 shows the corrected hourly wind speed profile over
24 h on the day (February 1, 2006) the data were collected.
The hourly solar irradiance data and air temperature collected
on the same day are shown in Figs. 11 and 12, respectively.
2) Simulation Results: The system performance under the
load profile given in Fig. 2 and the weather data shown in
Figs. 1012 is evaluated and discussed later.
The output power from the wind energy conversion unit in
the hybrid energy system over the 24 h simulation period is
shown in Fig. 13. When the wind speed is over 14 m/s, the
output power is limited to 50 kW by the pitch angle controller
(discussed in Section III). When the wind speed is less than the
wind turbine cutin speed (3 m/s), there is no wind power
generated.

WANG AND NEHRIR: POWER MANAGEMENT OF A STAND-ALONE WIND/PHOTOVOLTAIC/FUEL CELL ENERGY

SYSTEM

Fig. 10.
study.

Wind speed data for the winter scenario simulation

Fig. 13.

Wind power for the winter scenario study.

Fig. 11.

Solar irradiance data for the winter scenario simulation study.

Fig. 14.

PV power for the winter scenario.

Fig. 12.
study.

Air temperature data for the winter scenario simulation

The output power from the PV array in the system over the
24 h simulation period is shown in Fig. 14. As shown in Fig. 9,
the PV array output power is controlled by an MPPT controller
to give maximum power output under different solar
irradiances. It is noted that the PV output power curve,
shown in Fig. 14,

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has a wave shape similar to that of the solar irradiance profile

shown in Fig. 11.
As discussed in Section III (Fig. 6), temperature plays an
im- portant role in the PV modules performance. Fig. 15
shows the PV temperature response over the simulation
period. Two main factors for determining the temperature of
the PV module are the solar irradiance (Fig. 11) and the
surrounding air temperature (Fig. 12). It is noted from Fig. 6
that the higher the temperature, the lower is the maximum
power value. Figs. 14 and 15 also show the effect of
temperature upon the PV performance.
When Pne t > 0 [see (8) and (9)], there is excess power
avail- able for H2 generation. Fig. 16 shows the available
power profile over the 24 h simulation period. The available
power is used by the electrolyzer to generate H2 . Fig. 17
shows the H2 gener- ation rate over the simulation period.
The corresponding dc voltage applied to the electrolyzer and
the electrolyzer current are shown in Fig. 18. It is noted from
Figs. 1618 that the more power available for storage, the
higher is the dc input voltage to the electrolyzer, and as a
result, the more is the generated H2 .
When Pne t < 0, the sum of wind and PV-generated power is
not sufficient to supply the load demand. Under this condition,

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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ENERGY CONVERSION, VOL. 23, NO. 3, SEPTEMBER 2008

Fig. 15. PV temperature response over the simulation period for the winter
scenario.

Fig. 16.

Power available for H 2 generation of the winter scenario.

Fig. 17.

H 2 generation rate for the winter scenario study.

the FC turns on to supply the power shortage. Fig. 19 shows

the actual power delivered by the FC stack.
B. Summer Scenario
1) Weather Data: The weather data collected in Dear
Lodge, MT, on June 21, 2005, are used for the summer
scenario study [35]. The wind speed data, corrected to the
height of 40 m, is shown in Fig. 20. The solar irradiance and
air temperature data at the same site on the same day are
shown in Figs. 21 and 22, respectively.

Fig. 18.

Electrolyzer voltage and current for the winter scenario study.

Fig. 19.

Power supplied by the FC stack of the winter scenario study.

Fig. 20.

Corrected wind speed data for the summer scenario simulation study.

By comparing the winter solar irradiance data shown in

Fig. 11 and the summer solar irradiance data given in Fig. 21,
it is obvious that the daily time frame when solar energy is
available is wider in the summer than in the winter.
2) Simulation Results: In this section, the system performance under the same load demand profile given in Fig. 2 and
the weather data shown in Figs. 2022 is evaluated. The output
power from the WECS and the PV array in the hybrid energy
system over the 24 h simulation period are shown in Figs. 23
and
24, respectively. The spikes in Fig. 24 are due to the MPPT
con- trol, which tries to keep the PV array operating at its
maximum

WANG AND NEHRIR: POWER MANAGEMENT OF A STAND-ALONE WIND/PHOTOVOLTAIC/FUEL CELL ENERGY

SYSTEM

Fig. 21.

Fig. 22.

Fig. 23.

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Irradiance data for the summer scenario simulation study.

Fig. 24.

PV power generated for the summer scenario study.

Fig. 25.

H 2 generation rate for the summer scenario study.

Fig. 26.

H 2 consumption rate for the summer scenario study.

Air temperature data for the summer scenario simulation study.

Wind power generated for the summer scenario study.

power points under different temperatures and solar

irradiances. The time range of the spike is small (about 1 s).
When Pne t > 0, there is excess power available for H2 generation. Fig. 25 shows the H2 generation rate over the simulation period. When Pne t < 0, the sum of the wind and the
PV-generated power is not sufficient to supply the load
demand. Under this scenario, the FC stack turns on to supply
the power shortage by using the H2 stored in the storage tank.
Fig. 26 shows the corresponding H2 consumption rate.

The H2 storage tank pressure varies as H2 flows in and out.

It is apparent that the storage tank pressure will go up when
there is excess power available for H2 generation and will
decrease when the FC stack turns on (consuming H2 ) to
supply power to the load. Fig. 27 shows the tank pressure
variations over the
24 h simulation period for the summer scenario study.

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Fig. 27.

IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ENERGY CONVERSION, VOL. 23, NO. 3, SEPTEMBER 2008

Tank pressure over the 24 h for the summer scenario study.

VI. CONCLUSION
In this paper, an ac-linked stand-alone wind/PV/FC alternative energy system is proposed. The system configuration and
unit-sizing are discussed; the characteristics of the main
compo- nents in the system, namely, the WECS, PV, FC, and
electrolyzer are given; and the overall control and power
management strat- egy for the proposed hybrid energy system
is presented. The wind and PV generation systems are the
main power genera- tion devices, and the electrolyzer acts as a
dump load using any excess power available to produce H2 .
The FC system is the backup generation and supplies power
to the system when there is power deficit. The simulation
model of the hybrid system has been developed using
MATLAB/Simulink. Simulation studies have been carried out
to verify the system performance under different scenarios
using the practical load profile in the Pacific Northwest
regions and the real weather data collected at Deer Lodge,
MT. The simulation results, given for a winter and a summer
scenario, show the effectiveness of the overall power
management strategy and the feasibility of the proposed hybrid
alternative energy system.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors thank Dr. D. Pierre at Montana State University
for his comments and suggestions.
REFERENCES
[1]

Global Wind 2007 report, Global Wind Energy Council. [Online].

Avail- able: http://www.gwec.net/index.php?id=90
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1984.

Caisheng Wang (M02SM08) received the B.S.

and M.S. degrees from Chongqing University,
Chongqing, China, in 1994 and 1997, respectively, and the Ph.D. degree from Montana State
University, Bozeman, in 2006, all in electrical
engineering.
From August 1997 to May 2002, he was an Electrical Engineer at Zhejiang Electric Power Test and
Research Institute, Hangzhou, China. Since August
2006, he has been a faulty member in the Division
of Engineering Technology, Wayne State
University,
Detroit, MI. His current research interests include modeling and control of
power systems and electrical machinery, alternative/hybrid energy power
generation
systems, and fault diagnosis and online monitoring of electric machines.

967

M. Hashem Nehrir (S68M71SM89) received

the B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees from Oregon
State University, Corvallis, in 1969, 1971, and
1978, respectively, all in electrical engineering.
Since 1987, he has been with the Electrical and
Computer Engineering Department, Montana State
University, Bozeman, where he is currently a Professor. His current research interests include control
and modeling of power systems, alternative energy
power generation systems, and application of intelligent controls to power systems. He is the author of
two textbooks and an author or coauthor of numerous technical papers.