Technical details and photographs of Renewable Hybrid Energy Power Plant for Stand-alone applications developed at IIT Kharagpur under the project Sponsored by Vodafone Essar-IIT Kgp Center of Excellence in Telecommunications (VICET)
Renewable Hybrid Energy Power Plant
Fig. 1, Schematic block diagram of Solar-Fuel cell-Battery Hybrid Energy Power Plant
Renewable Hybrid Energy Power Plant
Fig.2: Photo of Solar-Fuel cell-Battery hybrid Energy Power Plant
Hybrid energy system using renewable power sources is a promising solution for Stand-alone applications like telecom stations in remote locations. Such arrangements could replace diesel generators in standalone installations, particularly placed far from the power grid. In isolated regions, intermittent renewable power system is integrated with adequate energy storage to provide a reliable supply of electricity to a load. The energy storage components (battery and/or Fuel Cell) can provide power to the load when the renewable sources are inadequate. Solar-fuel cell-Battery hybrid energy power plant schematic block diagram is shown in Fig. 1. The control system will direct power to a DC bus to supply the load, while the excess power is directed to the batteries first and an electrolyzer next, which is used to generate hydrogen for supplying the fuel cell. A unified controller for Solar-fuel cell-Battery hybrid energy power plant is designed, developed and tested with Solar PV as primary source, battery as primary backup, FC as secondary backup to feed a DC load.