Model predictive control of an integrated energy microgrid combining power to heat and hydrogen

With rapid development and high penetration of distributed generations (DG), energy storage devices (ESD) are becoming more important in nowadays integrated energy systems. Hydrogen takes a potential role in the future ESDs due to its cleanness and high energy density. Convert electricity into hydrogen is a relatively mature technology named the Power to Hydrogen (P2H). But during the conversion process, only 60% ∼ 70% consumed electricity is converted into hydrogen. To overcome the efficiency limitation of traditional P2H process, this paper proposes a P2HH (Power to Heat and Hydrogen) concept which not only works as a flexible load consuming the residual electricity, but also supplies extra heat partly instead of the gas boilers for the heat load. Temperature plays an important role in the efficiency management of P2HH, because it directly influences the proportion of power to Hydrogen and power to Heat. When applying in an integrated energy microgrid (P2HH-MG), P2HH could help increase the whole system efficiency in spite of the possible efficiency decrease of the P2H process. A MPC control strategy is adopted in this P2HH-MG to test the optimal economical operation.