Characteristics of Photovoltaic/Fuel Cell power Hybrid System (Effect on Electrical Load Form Factors)

Abstract

The photovoltaic power system has a great future as clean energy instead of fossil fuel which has many environmental problems such as exhausted gas or air pollution. Sunlight, a source of energy for the system, is greatly influenced by the weather conditions, seasons and times of a day, therefore it can not supply constant electric power. The photovoltaic/fuel cell power hybrid system is assumed, it combines PV array, hydrogen generator, storage tank and fuel cells by using hydrogen. This system can supply constant electric power to the electric load in a solitary island separated from a commercial electric network. The possibility of this system is examined by the computer simulation. Input data includes the global irradiance on inclined plane and temperature of HASP data of Tokyo, ten kinds of electrical load forms with 400 MWh electric power a year and conversion efficiencies of each subsystem. As a result of simulation, it was revealed that the area of PV array with 8170m² and the volume of hydrogen tank from 22×103 to 30×10³ k^l are necessary.