Stability of PV-Hydrogen Energy Hubs with Grid-Forming Energy Storage

Abstract

Highly self-sufficient energy hubs offer a promising solution to mitigate grid congestion in favor of grid operators and to reduce grid fees for the benefit of energy hub operators. Meanwhile, the energy hub's capacity may far exceed the grid connection capacity, creating a weak grid situation. As a result, power quality issues such as voltage fluctuations, frequency deviations, and even instability may occur. In this work, a grid-forming energy storage system (GFM-ESS) is integrated to address these potential problems. A model of the GFM-ESS and energy hub is established based on a 50 kW PV-Hydrogen energy hub demonstrator, where PV-generated power is utilized for green hydrogen production. A trade-off design is proposed to identify the optimal balance between the capacity of the GFM-ESS and the grid connection. The voltage and frequency response at the hub's bus are analyzed to evaluate this trade-off. While experiments with the 50 kW demonstrator are ongoing, simulation results are provided to validate the effectiveness of the proposed design.