A study of cost-optimized operation of a grid-parallel PEM fuel cell power plant

A cost-based approach is developed to study the economics of operation of the proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cell power plants (FCPP). This paper includes the operational cost, thermal recovery, power trade with the local grid, and hydrogen production. The cost-based approach is used to determine the optimal operational strategy that yields a minimum operating cost. The optimal operational strategy is achieved through the estimation of the hourly generated power, the amount of thermal power recovered from the FCPP to satisfy the thermal load, the amount of power trade with the local grid, and the amount of hydrogen that can be generated from the FCPP. An evolutionary programming-based technique is used to determine the optimal operational strategy. The strategy is tested using electrical and thermal load profiles. Results are encouraging and indicate the effectiveness of the proposed approach