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ABSTRACT: The purpose of the work, through the PVFC-SYS project, is to optimise the operation of the system coupling a
photovoltaic field, an electrolyser, a gas storage, a fuel cell and a power management unit using the cutting-edge technology
materials. Such a hybrid system is intended to be an environmentally friendly solution, to maximise the use of the renewable
energy production and in a near future to decrease the current level of investment and running costs.
A test bench is actually finalised in the Laboratory. All components have been selected for an optimal, automatic, safe and
reliable operation of the complete system. Fully instrumented, this test bench furnishes new data concerning each component
and the complete system behaviour for variable real weather conditions and different load demands.
The paper will present the complete description of the built PV-FC system. It will point out the most important advantages
and the competitive forecasted prices of that kind of systems.
Keywords: Photovoltaic, Electrolyser, Fuel Cell
Figure 1: The PV-FC system in place at Sophia necessary to analyse the system performance and to
Antipolis(F) (dotted arrows: electrical connections; full develop a simulation model.
arrows: H2, O2 and H2O transfers) Conclusions:
The installed PV-FC system has been designed to
2.2 Components operate automatically and safely. All components have
§ The PV field (PV) is constituted with 36 modules of been optimised to meet the best system performances. All
100 W from Photowatt (F). There are 6 sub arrays components have been tested and show a perfect
connected in parallel of 6 modules in series. The voltage operation. Now, the last stage is currently in progress: the
and current of the field are 210 V and 17A at nominal connection of all components to the PMU.
conditions. Different points will be particularly studied during
§ The electrolyser (EL) is an alkaline one from Hydrogen the next experiments: the water consumption of the
Systems (B), constituted by 16 cells of 300 cm2 in series. system, the intrinsic electrical consumption of the system
The nominal operating point is 120 A and 24 V at 80°C which has to be evaluated and minimised, the necessary
with a gas production efficiency of 85% (to be proved). energy provided by the batteries for the actual system.
Due to the oversize of the proposed periphery, the actual
periphery has been totally adapted to the application. The 3 ADVANTAGES OF THE PV-EL COUPLING
size is smaller than the commercial product and the
control of the gas production is realised by a 3.1 High energy conversion
microprocessor, which is also used for the control of the The first advantage is to convert renewable electricity
fuel cell and the storage. The produced gases are drained in chemical form at high conversion efficiency.
off the periphery by the way of electro valves. The The electrolysis efficiency is about 85%, based on the
electrolyte (KOH 30%w.) circulates naturally in the High Heating Value (HHV). The gas production
process. efficiency, named Faraday efficiency, increases with the
§ The gas and water storage (ST) is directly connected current density and hardly with the EL temperature [2].
to the 2 electrochemical components. Naturally evacuated Depending on the electrical connection between the PV
out of the fuel cell periphery, the pure water is stored in a field and the electrolyser, the adding loss is about 10%.
vessel and then provided to the electrolyser via a The overall energy conversion is thus 75% from the
membrane pump. The storable capacity is 3 litres. The 12 renewable production through the gas storage.
kWh gas storage is constituted of 8 bottles (8*50 Litres) Nevertheless, there are no losses due to a compressor.
for the hydrogen part and 4 bottles for the oxygen one. Indeed, the electrolyser is able to produce pressurized
§ The fuel cell (FC) is a Proton Exchange Membrane pure gases. At present, the commercial electrolyser
Fuel Cell from De Nora, containing 18 cells of 900 cm2 pressure is only 10-25 Bars (Hydrogen Systems: 10Bars
in series. The nominal operating conditions are 350 A for or 25 Bars, Proton energy Systems: 14 Bars). But, in the
11,4 V at an efficiency of 50%. The periphery has been near future, that pressure should increase up to 120 Bars
especially designed to allow an adapted safe operation of (Forschungszentrum Julich).
the device consuming pure hydrogen and pure oxygen Finally, when the energy is stored in gas storage,
[1]. The process needs 2 pumps: one circulates the water there is no loss, in time.
and one allows the gas recirculation in the FC and its The PV-EL coupling allows a conversion of
auxiliary. renewable electricity at high efficiency in a time-stable
These 3 previous parts constitutes the hydraulical part of energy form.
the system (circled at the bottom of the Figure 1). This Oxygen may also be stored as hydrogen. Storing the 2
part, which is in fact the storage compared to a battery, is pure produced gases should allow to increase the fuel cell
entirely closed and controlled by a unique performance (to be proved) [1] and to limit water losses
of systems. 30% and 40%. The ratio is usually less than 25% in
3.2 Environmentally friendly solution professional SAS [3].
The electrolyser consumes pure water, largely present 14
on the earth. 12