Wind and photovoltaic (PV) power generation are two of the most promising renewable energy technologies. Fuel cell (FC) systems also show great potential in DG applications of the future due to their fast technology development and many merits they have, such as high efficiency, zero or low emission (of pollutant gases) and flexible modular structure. However, presently, each of them has each own shortcomings. Wind and PV power are highly dependent on weather. And FC is still costly at the current stage. Nevertheless, through proper power flow control and load management, a hybrid energy system can provide higher quality and more reliable power than a single-source system.

This talk will discuss the modeling and control of a FC/wind/PV/ hybrid alternative DG system. Wind and PV are the primary power sources of the system. FC/electrolyzer combination is used as a backup and long term storage unit. Different energy sources in the system are integrated through an AC link bus. System component modeling and the overall power management strategy for coordinating the power flows among the different energy sources are discussed. The DG grid-connected operation and DG optimal placement are discussed at system level. The other potential applications of the proposed techniques will also be addressed in the talk.