Power converters for use in stand-alone renewable-energy systems incorporating hydrogen storage

A stand-alone renewable-energy system employing a hydrogen-based energy store is under development. In order to interconnect the various generators, loads and a storage system, a central DC bus bar has been proposed. The rotating generators, such as the wind turbines, are connected through standard industrial drives operating in regenerative mode. The DC devices: electrolyser, fuel cell and solar photovoltaic (PV) array, require custom DC-DC converters to connect to the central bus bar. In this paper, a review of the various converters required for the interconnection of such a system is presented. The practicalities of implementing such a system and, in particular, the DC-DC converters are discussed.