ECONOMIC AND OPTIMAL OPERATION OF THE NETWORK CONNECTED PV-FC HYBRID SYSTEM IN SUPPLYING RESIDENTIAL LOADS

This paper presents an economic model and helps an evolutionary approach to evaluate the impact of PV-FC hybrid system on the performance and operational costs which is network-connected. The using of wind and solar energies in the form of individual units, due to the low reliability and intermittent nature of these energies is not so much economical. Therefore, the combination of these technologies in the form of combined heat and power (CHP) system can be considered as a potential option to reduce the operational costs. In this paper, the integrated PV-FC cost model includes production costs of power, output thermal power from the reformer, power produced by PV, power trade with the network, and maintenance costs. In addition, the different tariff rates for purchasing and selling electricity in each hour of a day are considered. In order to estimate the optimal operational strategy for the hybrid system the genetic algorithm (GA) is used. At last, the simulation results show the reduction of operational costs in different conditions of utilization from the proposed system.