Hybrid Modeling for Performance Evaluation of Multisource Renewable Energy Systems

This paper is devoted to multisource renewable energy systems. A modeling approach is proposed that brings a detailed understanding of the coupling and uncoupling of DC/DC power converters on a DC bus including the regulation of the DC bus voltage and the driving of current provided by each converter to the load. This approach is systematic and the resulting average state-space model depends only on the number and characteristics of the converters. The model has a generic expression the parameters of which switch according to the converters coupling and uncoupling on the DC bus. The model has been identified and validated with an experimental device developed by GREAH Research Group for the optimization of energies transfers for multisource renewable energy systems. Our approach can be used in the context of power management as support for performance evaluation (converter design, supervisory control design, and so on). Note to Practitioners-Multisources renewable energy systems coupled on a DC bus are not usual equipments, and experimentation with such equipments are difficult to carry out and time consuming. These systems are fragile (particularly the converters which are sensible to short circuits and surcharges), dangerous with potential risk for the practitioners (particularly for DC bus with high-power transfers). The proposed hybrid model can be used as a numerical simulator for multisources renewable energy systems. This model is an easy and low cost tool for designing, validating and evaluating the performances of the control strategies developed for the optimization of energy transfers. Moreover, it is also helpful in the design of the systems structure (sources number and converters characteristics). As a consequence, it could be considered as an integrated numerical solution for the study of power management. This solution is systematic and also portable with respect to the technical characteristics of the components.