A Review of the Optimization and Control Strategies for Fuel Cell Power Plants in a Microgrid Environment
Sfiso Ndumiso Mtolo, Akshay Kumar Saha
Abstract
In the recent years, microgrid has been receiving increasing attention as one typical structure in smart grid frameworks. Fuel cells (FC) among other most relevant renewable energy sources have been studied as viable energy alternatives, in terms of them being cleaner and more efficient. Since the academic community and industry started giving attention to FCs, there have been many uplifting achievements in making FC technology more relevant as an energy source and as a result, FCs are increasingly penetrating different fields. The application of FCs into microgrids among other applications has proved advantageous on the performance improvement of microgrids while also inspiring hydrogen energy usage. While this combination of the two technologies carries advantages, there are many challenges that are faced in the process lying on multiple domains. The optimization and control of this combination, and the two technologies individually has been studied greatly in recent years. This paper presents the review of the control of FC based microgrids, where FCs in microgrid environment are looked at after recalling the knowledge background of FCs, the active disturbance rejection controller (ADRC) as a possible controller for some strategies, and the hybrid system and control mechanisms.