Design and set up of a hybrid power system (PV-WT-URFC) for a stand-alone application in Mexico

The Mexican territory has a large potential for renewable energy development, such as geothermal, hydro, biofuels, wind and solar. Thus, a 2.5 kW hybrid power system (solar, wind and hydrogen) was designed and installed to meet the power demand for a stand-alone application at the University of Zacatecas. The hybrid unit integrates three power energy sources –a photovoltaic system (PV), a micro-wind turbine (WT), a prototype of a unitized regenerative fuel cell (URFC) and energy storage devices (batteries)– in addition to their interaction methodology. The main contribution of this work is the URFC integration to a hybrid power system for the production of H2 (water electrolyzer mode) and energy (fuel cell mode). These three energy technologies were connected in parallel, synchronized to the energy storage system and finally coupled to a power conversion module. To achieve the best performance and energy management, an energy management and control strategy was developed to the properly operation of the power plant. A meteorological station that has wireless sensors for the temperature, the humidity, the solar radiation and the wind speed provides the necessary information (in real time) to the monitor and control software, which computes and executes the short and mid–term decisions about the energy management and the data storage for future analysis.

► A 2.5 kW hybrid power system was designed and installed for a stand-alone application in Mexico.
► The hybrid unit integrates three power energy sources: a PV system a micro-WT and a URFC prototype.
► The main contribution is the URFC integration to a hybrid power system for H2 and energy productions.
► The URFC performs as an energy storage module (WE mode) and energy conversion device (FC mode).
► An energy management strategy was developed to the properly operation of the power plant.