IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ENERGY CONVERSION, VOL. 23, NO.
3, SEPTEMBER 2008
Power Management of a Stand-Alone
Wind/Photovoltaic/Fuel Cell Energy System
Caisheng Wang, Senior Member, IEEE, and M. Hashem Nehrir, Senior Member, IEEE
Abstract—This 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 FC–electrolyzer 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.
Index Terms—Alternative energy, electrolyzer, fuel cell (FC),
hybrid, photovoltaic (PV), power management, stand-alone, wind.
I. INTRODUCTION
HE EVER increasing energy consumption, the soaring
T 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 fea-
ture, 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 ECS-
0135229 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 Bat-
telle 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 Uni-
versity, 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).
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
0885-8969/$25.00 © 2008 IEEE
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957
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 FC–electrolyzer
combination is used as a backup and a long-term 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 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 hy-
brid alternative energy system. In the system, the renewable
wind and PV power are taken as the primary source while the
FC–electrolyzer 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
958
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 unit-sizing 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 system’s economic aspect is not considered in the paper.
Some details on the economics of similar wind/PV/FC systems
are given in another paper by the authors [5].
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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.
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
P̄
kcf = (1)
Prated
where P̄ is the actual average output power over a period of
time and Prated 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 be-
tween the generated power (P̄gen ) from the renewable energy
source and the demand (P̄dem ) over a period of time T . T is
taken as one year in this study:
∆P = P̄gen − P̄dem
= kcf wtg × Pwtg,rated + kcf PV × PPV ,rated − P̄dem
(2)
where Pwtg,rated is the power rating of the wind turbine gener-
ator and PPV ,rated is the power rating of the PV array.
To balance the generation and demand, the rated power for
the PV array is
P̄dem − kcf wtg × Pwtg,rated
PPV ,rated = . (3)
kcf PV
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
TABLE I
SYSTEM COMPONENT PARAMETERS
The FC–electrolyzer 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
Pgen, m ax − Pdem ,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 maxi-
mum 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.
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959
Fig. 3. C p –λ characteristics of the WECS at different pitch angles (θ).
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 three-
phase systems, as discussed in this paper, reactive power com-
pensation 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 power Pwind (in watts) extracted from wind is
1
Pwind = ρAv 3 Cp (λ, θ) (5)
2
where ρ 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 λ) and pitch angle (θ) [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 – λ 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 (θ). 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.
960 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ENERGY CONVERSION, VOL. 23, NO. 3, SEPTEMBER 2008

Fig. 4. Wind turbine output power characteristic.

Fig. 4 shows the output power of the WECS vs. wind speed. Fig. 5. I–V characteristic curves of the PV model at different irradiances.
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.

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]

  
V + IRs
I = IL − I0 exp −1 (6) Fig. 6. P–V characteristic curves of the PV model at different operating tem-
α
peratures.
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
them show great potential in hybrid energy system applications.
ohms), and α is the thermal voltage timing completion factor of
For the purpose of simplicity, only the PEMFC application is
the cell (in volts).
discussed in this paper.
The I–V characteristic curves of the PV model used in this
The PEMFC model is based on the validated dynamic model
study under different irradiances (at 25 ◦ C) are given in Fig. 5
for a PEMFC stack reported in [33]. It is an autonomous model
[27]. It is noted from the figure that the higher the irradiance,
operated under constant channel pressure with no control on
the larger are the short-circuit current (Isc ) and the open-circuit
the input fuel flow into the FC. The model was validated by
voltage (Vo c ). As a result, the larger will be the output PV power.
experimental data measured from an Avista Labs (ReliOn now)
Temperature plays an important role in the PV performance
SR-12 500 W PEMFC stack. The FC will adjust the input fuel
because the four parameters (IL , I0 , Rs , and α) in (6) are all
flow according to its load current to keep the channel pressure
functions of temperature. The effect of the temperature on the
constant. Fig. 7 shows the output voltage vs. load current (V–I)
PV model performance is illustrated in Fig. 6. It is noted from the
characteristic curve of the 500 W PEMFC model compared
figure that the lower the temperature, the higher is the maximum
with the experimental data [33]. This characteristic curve can
power and the larger the open circuit voltage.
be divided into three regions. The voltage drop across the FC
associated with low currents is due to the activation loss inside
C. Fuel Cell the FC; the voltage drop in the middle of the curve (which is
Two types of FCs have been modeled for this study. They approximately linear) is due to the ohmic loss in the FC stack;
are low-temperature proton-exchange membrane FC (PEMFC) and as a result of the concentration loss, the output voltage at the
[33] and high-temperature solid oxide FC (SOFC) [34]. Both of end of the curve will drop sharply as the load current increases.

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WANG AND NEHRIR: POWER MANAGEMENT OF A STAND-ALONE WIND/PHOTOVOLTAIC/FUEL CELL ENERGY SYSTEM
Fig. 7. PEMFC V–I characteristic: comparison of model response with exper-
imental data.
D. Electrolyzer
An electrolyzer is a device that produces hydrogen and oxy-
gen from water. Water electrolysis can be considered a reverse
process of a hydrogen-fueled FC. In contrast to the electro-
chemical reaction occurring in an FC to produce dc electricity,
an electrolyzer converts dc electrical energy into chemical en-
ergy 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 I–V equation reported in [15] and [26],
described as
r1 + r2 T
Velec,cell = Vrev + I
A purpose of simplification, only the power consumed by the com-
 
kT 1 + kT 2 /T + kT 3 /T 2
+ kelec ln I + 1 (7)
A
where Velec,cell is the cell terminal voltage (in volts), Vrev 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 V–I 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
the terminal voltage needed.
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961
Fig. 8. V–I characteristics of the electrolyzer model under different tempera-
tures.
IV. OVERALL POWER MANAGEMENT STRATEGY
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
Pnet = Pwind + PPV − Pload − Psc (8)
where Pwind 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
pressor (Pcom p ) is considered in this study.
The governing control strategy is that, at any given time, any
excess wind and PV-generated power (Pnet > 0) is supplied to
the electrolyzer to generate hydrogen that is delivered to the
hydrogen storage tanks through a gas compressor. Therefore,
the power balance equation given in (8) can be written as
Pwind + PPV = Pload + Pelec + Pcom p , Pnet > 0 (9)
where Pelec is the power consumed by the electrolyzer to gener-
ate H2 and Pcom p is the power consumed by the gas compressor.
When there is a deficit in power generation (Pnet < 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
Pwind + PPV + PFC = Pload , Pnet < 0 (10)
where PFC is the power generated by the FC stack.
962
Fig. 9. 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.
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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ENERGY CONVERSION, VOL. 23, NO. 3, SEPTEMBER 2008
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]:
 α
H1
Ws1 = Ws0 (11)
H0
where Ws1 (in meters per second) is the wind speed at the hub
height H1 (in meters), Ws0 (in meters per second) is the wind
speed at the height H0 (in meters), and α is the wind speed
correction exponent. The exponent α 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. 10–12 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. Wind speed data for the winter scenario simulation study.
Fig. 11. Solar irradiance data for the winter scenario simulation study.
Fig. 12. Air temperature data for the winter scenario simulation study.
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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963
Fig. 13. Wind power for the winter scenario study.
Fig. 14. PV power for the winter scenario.
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 module’s 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 Pnet > 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. 16–18 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 Pnet < 0, the sum of wind and PV-generated power is
not sufficient to supply the load demand. Under this condition,
964
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.
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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ENERGY CONVERSION, VOL. 23, NO. 3, SEPTEMBER 2008
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 perfor-
mance under the same load demand profile given in Fig. 2 and
the weather data shown in Figs. 20–22 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 965

Fig. 21. Irradiance data for the summer scenario simulation study.
Fig. 24. PV power generated for the summer scenario study.

Fig. 22. Air temperature data for the summer scenario simulation study.

Fig. 25. H 2 generation rate for the summer scenario study.

Fig. 23. 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 Pnet > 0, there is excess power available for H2 gen-
eration. Fig. 25 shows the H2 generation rate over the simu-
lation period. When Pnet < 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.
Fig. 26. H 2 consumption rate for the summer scenario study.
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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966 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ENERGY CONVERSION, VOL. 23, NO. 3, SEPTEMBER 2008
Fig. 27. Tank pressure over the 24 h for the summer scenario study.
VI. CONCLUSION
In this paper, an ac-linked stand-alone wind/PV/FC alterna-
tive 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.
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WANG AND NEHRIR: POWER MANAGEMENT OF A STAND-ALONE WIND/PHOTOVOLTAIC/FUEL CELL ENERGY SYSTEM 967

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1984.

Caisheng Wang (M’02–SM’08) received the B.S.

and M.S. degrees from Chongqing University,
Chongqing, China, in 1994 and 1997, respec-
tively, 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 Elec-
trical 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.

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