Sizing of photovoltaic system coupled with hydrogen/oxygen storage based on the ORIENTE model

PEPITE is a project funded by the French ANR PAN-H research program. This project concerns, among various other tasks, a demonstration of a weather station electricity supply with help of a PV/FC/EL hybrid system located at the CEA center of Cadarache (France). To design a relevant sizing for this demonstration system, a complete sizing tool has been developed via a new numerical optimizing code named ORIENTE. It uses Matlab software based on sequential running time. The demonstration system will be composed of a PV array, a PEM fuel cell system and a PEM electrolyzer, batteries, storage tanks for H-2, O-2 and H2O, as well as associated converters. This paper presents the obtained optimal sizing curves for the hybrid system (P-pv [kWp], QH(2max) [kg]) by taking into account the predefined constant load (6.5 kW) functioning 24/24 hours and the system energy balance for a loss-of-load probability LLP = 0. These results give the sizes of each subsystem and will make possible to build the best energy flows control mode. (C) 2010 Professor T. Nejat Veziroglu. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.