The Effects of Renewable PV/T and Fuel Cell Combined Heat and Power Generation on Optimal Design of Off-Grid Integrated Power System

The photovoltaic/thermal (PV/T) system can be integrated with other energy resources and, the optimal design of such integrated PV/T systems becomes important. Also, fuel cell with hydrogen consumption is significantly useful in combination with other renewable energy systems. The objective of this study is to investigate the effects of PV/T and fuel cell as a combined heat and power system on optimal design problem with considerations for PV/T unreliability. The contributions of this study are consideration unreliability of PV/T panels output heat and power and investigation the effects of PV/T and fuel cell on optimal design problem are investigated. Some limitations such as battery size, PV/T installation area, and demand unreliability are subjected to problem. As heuristic algorithm is applied in optimal design problem, it is shown that utilization of PV/T reduces cost by 1.10%. Also, with utilization of fuel cell beside other units, total cost is reduced as compared with literature. A critical sensitivity analysis is done and, it is concluded that several factors, namely, PV/T, energy storage system, conventional distributed generation, fuel cell, fuel prices, and power and heat profiles have considerable effects on optimal design. Among them, battery and fuel cell prices have the most and least effects.