Home Energy Management System of Fuel Cell-Based CHP System with Electric and Thermal Load Scheduling

Most home energy management systems (HEMS) of fuel cell-based CHPs in existing literature are designed to dispatch fuel cell energy using forecasted electric and/or thermal load as direct input. This leads to dispatching errors associated with inaccurate forecasting. To address that issue, HEMSs of fuel cell-based CHP that features electric and thermal load scheduling have been proposed. However, these HEMSs were modelled assuming that fuel cell electric efficiency is constant. This results in poorer accuracy because, in practice, fuel cell electric efficiency varies with fuel cell electric output in a nonlinear manner. Rather than assuming that fuel cell electric efficiency is constant, nonlinear functions are used in this paper to represent fuel cell electric efficiency thus presenting a more accurate modelling for the HEMS of fuel cell-based CHP that features electric and thermal load scheduling. Simulation results show that the proposed HEMS is formulated correctly and performs energy management optimally.