Cost Considerations on Fuel Cell Renewable Energy Systems

The purpose of this paper is to economically evaluate the use of a fuel cell along with a photovoltaic array to provide electricity to residential houses. The use of a fuel cell is compared to the use of a battery as a way of storage. Different scenarios are presented regarding the use of the fuel cell with the PV system and the grid. Each scenario was based on an arrangement of the energy sources, considering cases where net metering and avoided cost were used and considering overproduction and underproduction cases. For each scenario it was determined how much money could be saved or lost if renewable energies were used compared to just buying electricity from the utility. The importance of operation cost optimization is described in brief along with linear programming based optimization scheme that can be used for a household with PV. It was concluded that renewable energies are cost-effective and that currently batteries are a better choice for storing energy

I. Introduction

In this modern world of technological developments, economic expansion and population growth, the demand for energy increases rapidly. As stated in [1], by 2030 the global energy consumption is estimated at about two-thirds higher than it is today. With this in mind and knowing that fossil fuels are finite resources, renewable energies (such as solar and wind energies) become great alternatives. Besides being replenished, renewable resources are environmental friendly. They produce electricity with a very low or no amount of carbon dioxide emissions, while the combustion of fossil fuels contributes greatly to the global warming.