Optimal Behavior for Enhancing Energy Saving of Households with Fuel Cell

Abstract

When Fuel Cells(FC) are installed to households, the performance of FC depends on electricity and heat consumption which results from the behavior of the households. This paper aims at investigating optimal electric-apparatus management to be matched optimal operation of FC. Two kinds of energy saving actions are considered. One is time rearrangement of electric apparatus use, and the other is replacement of conventional apparatus with more efficient one. A mathematical model in which apparatus selection and FC operation were simultaneously considered was developed to evaluate the optimal management. This model represents those behaviors with the minimization of total cost. The results show that the case of shifting the operation of the apparatus appropriately improves energy saving by 1% than the case simply installing FC. Moreover, it was found that the energy saving is possible to increase by 4-5% without additional cost when the optimal time management and the replacement are implemented.