An optimal reference governor for hybrid Fuel-Cell/Gas-Turbine as a distributed generation source

Hybrid fuel cell power plants have been introduced as an alternative power source for distributed generation, which can improve the power quality and reliability of the power grid. One of the most important issues of plant operations is the optimal control of the power plant, which will provide significant economic and environmental benefits in the long run. As a commercialized fuel cell technology, Direct FuelCell with Gas Turbine (DFC/T) power plant is investigated in this paper. A framework of an optimal reference governor (ORG) is developed to generate optimal setpoints and feedforward controls for the local control scheme to improve the overall fuel efficiency. Advanced heuristic optimization algorithms, i.e., particle swarm optimization (PSO) and its variations are investigated. The simulation of the optimization result is presented and validated by the comparison with the operational data without the proposed reference governor.