A Real-time Operational Cost Minimization Strategy for Energy Management of Fuel Cell Electric Vehicles

One of the major barriers to successful commercialization of fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEVs) is the high operational cost incurred by the hydrogen consumption and energy source degradation. To directly reduce the operational cost of FCEVs, this paper presents an operational cost minimization strategy (OCMS) for the energy management of FCEVs. The onboard energy system of the studied FCEV includes fuel cell, battery, and supercapacitor. Distinguished from previous studies, two discrete decision variables are introduced in the OCMS to optimize the operating modes of the battery and supercapacitor. Then, the proposed OCMS formulates the energy management problem of the FCEV as a mixed-integer nonlinear optimization problem. The optimal current reference for each energy source is obtained by solving this optimization problem online. The real-time performance of the OCMS is evaluated on a real-time digital simulator. Compared to a rule-based EMS, the OCMS demonstrates better cost performance by saving around 7% operational expenses under typical driving cycles.