Modeling of a Combined Wind Turbine-Fuel Cell Hybrid Power System and Contribution of Fuel Cell Electrical Supply Demand in Case Study

Using the renewable energy is the better option to supply demined in the standalone area. World’s most fast-growing renewable energy resource is the wind energy. One of the main disadvantages of this system, however, is that naturally variable wind speed causes power fluctuation problems at the load side. Besides, long-term storage of power generated by wind turbines is considered as a limitation on the part of remote locations. Batteries can be used to store a limited amount of energy for a short time. Applied hybrid energy is a good idea for supply demand in the discrete wind speed region. The present study was aimed at analyzing the energy flow analysis of a hybrid wind turbine-fuel cell system. Such system consists of wind turbines, electrolyzer, fuel cell and hydrogen tank for long time energy storage. A case study is done using practical data from the Abarkoh region in Iran. The result revealed, the percentage of energy generated by the wind turbines and used to cover the electrical demand is 56% and the percentage of the demand covered by the fuel cell 44%.