Power management system for off-grid hydrogen production based on uncertainty

•Electrolyzer and fuel cell activation with respect to net power and uncertainties.•Uncertainty propagation method for wind turbine based on Taylor's series.•Electrolyzer and fuel cell lifetime improvement using a fuzzy logic controller.

This paper investigates a new approach that incorporates the predicted renewable energy power as well as the predicted load consumption in the power flow management of a stand-alone hybrid renewable energy system. The studied renewable system comprises photovoltaic panels, wind turbine, as primary renewable energy sources and uses as second source a fuel cell which provides electric power from previously stored hydrogen produce by an electrolyzer. Using stochastic models and propagating wind speed, solar irradiance uncertainties through the system, a new fuzzy logic controller is design and validated with a reported experimental data. Unlike the reported power management system, the control system incorporate a one-step prediction of the DC link net power with its uncertainty in order to make an appropriate decision which improves the hydrogen and the fuel cell lifetime. Through a comparative study, its has been demonstrated that integrating power prediction and its uncertainty gives better results than an optimization-based approach proposed in literature.