Power control of PV/fuel cell/supercapacitor hybrid system for stand-alone applications

This paper presents modeling and control of photovoltaic/fuel cell/supercapacitor hybrid power system for stand-alone applications. The hybrid power system uses solar photovoltaic array and fuel cell as the main sources. These sources share their power effectively to meet the load demand. The supercapacitor bank is used to supply or absorb the power during load transients. The main control system comprises of controller for maximum power tracking from photovoltaic system, a DC-DC boost converter with controller for fuel cell system for power management and inverter controller to regulate voltage and frequency. The stand-alone hybrid system aims to provide quality power supply to the consumers with a constant voltage and frequency along with proper power management using simple control techniques. The modeling and control strategies of the hybrid system are realized in MATLAB/Simulink.