Energy Management and Feasibility Analysis of a Grid-Connected Hybrid Wind/Fuel Cell System for Pumping station electrification

This article presents an analysis of the techno-economic feasibility of a grid-connected Wind/Fuel-Cell hybrid energy system, for the electrification of an irrigation water pumping station. In this work, we propose an analytical comparative study between two different hybrid systems connected to the grid, the first is an on-grid wind system and the second is an on-grid Wind/Fuel-Cell hybrid system. In this comparative study, we focus on two important criteria: reliability and the total annual cost, which contains (initial, maintenance and operating costs) for each proposed system. The simulation results indicated that the total annual cost of the Wind/FC on-grid system is lower than the cost of the Wind on-grid system, for completely cover the energy demand of the pumps used throughout the year. Therefore, the results confirmed the techno-economic superiority of the Wind/FC on-grid system compared to the Wind on-grid system.