Ammonia Fuel Cells for Wind Power Smoothing and Control for Smart Grid Applications

The fluctuant nature of wind power constitutes a major challenge that needs to be addressed in smart grids. Fuel cells provide vast opportunities for wind power smoothing and control. Specifically, ammonia fuel cells provide solutions to various problems associated with hydrogen fuel cells. Hence, in this study, the implementation of ammonia fuel cells is investigated for wind power smoothing and control. The moving average (MA), Savitzky-Golay (SG), and moving median (MM) smoothing filters are utilized to smooth fluctuant wind power outputs. An electrochemical ammonia synthesizer (EAS) is utilized to synthesize ammonia when excess power is available. A direct ammonia fuel cell (DAFC) is employed for mitigating power deficits to attain smooth power outputs. Daily EAS and DAFC capacity requirements are found to reach 16.3 kmol and 59.8 MWh respectively for the SG filtered smooth power. The developed energy storage system provides an effective methodology for smoothing and control of fluctuant wind power.