Energy management strategy based on short-term generation scheduling for a renewable microgrid using a hydrogen storage system

This paper presents a novel energy management strategy (EMS) to control an isolated microgrid powered by a photovoltaic array and a wind turbine and equipped with two different energy storage systems: electric batteries and a hydrogen production and storage system. In particular, an optimal scheduling of storage devices is carried out to maximize the benefits of available renewable resources by operating the photovoltaic systems and the wind turbine at their maximum power points and by minimizing the overall utilization costs. Unlike conventional EMS based on the state-of-charge (SOC) of batteries, the proposed EMS takes into account the uncertainty due to the intermittent nature of renewable resources and electricity demand. In particular, the uncertainties are evaluated with a stochastic approach through the construction of different scenarios with corresponding probabilities. The EMS is defined by minimizing the utilization costs of the energy storage equipment. The weather conditions recorded in four different weeks between April and December are used as case studies to test the proposed EMS and the results obtained are compared with a conventional EMS based on the state-of-charge of batteries. The results show a reduction of utilization costs of about 15% in comparison to conventional SOC-based EMS and an increase of the average energy storage efficiency. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.