EFFICIENT POWER HARVESTING FOR FUEL CELLS: DYNAMIC-STEPPED MPPT WITH NEURAL ADAPTIVE WATER CYCLE METHOD

In this research, a new approach based on a dynamic-stepped maximum power point tracking (MPPT) technology and a neural adaptive water cycle (NA-WC) method is proposed to improve the power gathering effectiveness of fuel cells. Although fuel cells have drawn a lot of interest as a clean and effective energy source, maximizing their power harvesting effectiveness is still a major problem. To solve this problem, we present a brand-new dynamic-stepped MPPT method that constantly alters the fuel cell's functioning position to achieve optimum output of power under various environmental circumstances. A 7 kW proton-exchange membrane fuel cell (PEM-FC) that supplied a resistive load through a boost converter created utilizing the suggested MPPT controller was effectively used to study the effectiveness of the suggested NA-WC MPPT. The suggested NA-WC outperforms the traditional MPPT approaches in terms of convergence rate, overshoot, and steady state fluctuations, according to simulation findings obtained by utilizing the Matlab tool. Additionally, the fuel cell's lifespan and effectiveness can both be increased by the suggested controller's current ripple minimization

4E assessment of power generation systems for a mobile house in emergency condition using solar energy: a case study

In this study, a solar parabolic trough concentrator (PTC) was evaluated as a heat source of a power generation system based on energy (E1), exergy (E2), environmental (E3), and economic (E4) analyses. Various configurations of power generation systems were investigated, including the solar SRC (SRC) and solar ORC (ORC). Water and R113 were used as heat transfer fluids of SRC and ORC system, respectively. It should be mentioned that the proposed solar systems were evaluated for providing the required power of a mobile house in an emergency condition such as an earthquake that was happened in Kermanshah, Iran, in 2016 with many homeless people. The PTC system was optically and thermally investigated based on sensitivity analysis. The optimized PTC system was assumed as a heat source of the RC with two various configurations for power generation. Then, the solar RC systems were investigated based on 4E analyses for providing the power of the mobile house based on various numbers of solar RC units. It was concluded that the solar SRC system could be recommended for achieving the highest 4E performance. The highest value of its energy efficiency was found at 24.60% and of his exergy at 26.37%. On the other hand, the ORC system has energy and exergy efficiencies at 17.64% and 18.91%, respectively, which are significantly lower than the efficiencies of the SRC system. The optimum heat source temperature for the SRC system is found at 650 K, while for the ORC system at 499 K. Moreover, the best economic performance was found with the SRC system with a payback period of 7.47 years. Finally, the CO2 mitigated per annum (φCO2) was estimated at 5.29 (tones year−1), and the carbon credit (ZCO2) was calculated equal to 76.71 ($ year−1)