Model of a regenerative fuel cell-supported wind turbine AC power generating system

Wind is a renewable energy resource that is growing in importance as a means to address the national and global issues of air pollution, grid reliability, dependence on foreign oil, climate change, etc. However, the wind varies over time and there is less of it (on average) at sites around major load centers, which are two of the technical and economic challenges to the establishment of power generation facilities relying solely on the wind. But hybrid systems, such as wind turbine-fuel cell systems, have the potential to rectify these shortcomings and also make possible the greater decentralization of electric power generation in the United States, thus easing the transmission and distribution system's bottlenecks while increasing its overall reliability and security without sacrificing the quality of power delivered to the customer. Furthermore, wind turbine-fuel cell systems can achieve these results in an environment-friendly manner without producing harmful emissions. This work describes the development of a simulation model and the associated control schemes for a small-scale, prototype wind turbine-fuel cell system that will enable the further study and optimization of the performance, sizing, cost, etc., of such hybrid systems.