DC Bus Stabilization of Li-Ion Battery Based Energy Storage for a Hydrogen/Solar Power Plant for Autonomous Network Applications

This paper presents an energy management approach for a hybrid energy system comprised of a photovoltaic (PV) array and a polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell (PEMFC). A single storage device, i.e., a Li-ion battery module, is used in the proposed structure. Linear proportional-integral (PI) and nonlinear flatness-based controllers for dc bus stabilization for power plants are compared. To verify the control approaches, a hardware system is realized with analog circuits for the PV, FC, and battery current control loops (inner controller loops) and with numerical calculation (dSPACE) for the external energy control loops. Experimental results with small-scale devices [namely, a PV array (800 W, 31 A), a PEMFC (1200 W, 46 A), and a Li-ion battery module (11.6 Ah, 24 V)] illustrate the excellent energy management scheme during load cycles, and the nonlinear differential flatness-based control was determined to provide improved dc bus regulation relative to a classical linear PI control method.