Optimization of PEM fuel cells for PV-Hydrogen power system

This paper presents photovoltaic-hydrogen power system for mobile phone station. This base transceiver station (BTS) is located in neighboring Ouargla city (in the south of Algeria). The power system includes a photovoltaic (PV) field, water electrolyzer and two fuel cells. Each fuel cell is used according to daily and seasonal load of the station. A biphasic model is adopted for the simulation of fuel cell stacks. The governing equations are solved using a program written under Matlab. Multi-criteria optimization with weighting between two opposite objectives is used to determine the compromise solutions between maximum efficiency and minimal fuel cells size. Genetic algorithm coupled with Quasi-Newton method is used to achieve optimal fuel cells operations. The optimal solutions in Pareto sense are plotted according to weighting coefficient. The obtained results show that PV modules number for the summer period is relatively high which requires introducing some technical improvements on shelter walls for reducing air-conditioning loads. (C) 2013 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.