Hybrid Fuel-Cell-Solar Power System Design for
Water Pumping Applications with Fuzzy Energy
Management and Weather Forecasting
Abdul-Kadir Hamid
Waleed Obaid
EE Department
EE Department
University of Sharjah
University of Sharjah
Sharjah, UAE
Sharjah, UAE
akhamid@sharjah.ac.ae
U00032590@sharjah.ac.ae
Abstract— We proposed a hybrid water pumping power system
design that depends two renewable energy sources is proposed.
The hybrid system is used to supply water by the DC water
pumping motor and the fuel cell. The system uses weather
forecasting to deal with the changing weather conditions that
affect solar irradiance which depends on temperature, wind speed,
and humidity. The primary components which the proposed
system consist of are solar (PV) array combined with Maximum
Power Point Tracking (MPPT) system in addition to fuel cell with
electrolyzer and hydrogen storage tank. Other components that
were used in the proposed design are voltage regulator to control
the solar power system voltage and battery bank to store the
voltage of the solar power sytem. Solar irradiance forecasting was
implemented in the design using Neural Network concept to test
the reliability under different weather conditions. Fuzzy energy
management was used to control the fuel flow rate inside the fuel
cell based on battery bank state of charge value. SIMULINK
blocks and components were utilized to simulate the proposed
hybrid system and show the continuous the corresponding
outputs.
Keywords- Hybrid renewable water pumping power system, Fuel
cell, Solar PV panels, Battery fuzzy energy management, Weather
forecasting.
I. INTRODUCTION
Energy demands rises annually across the world, pushing for
exploration and investigation into alternative renewable sources
of energy and combination of renewable energy sources as they
are friendly to environment since they do not result in producing
harmful emissions from them unlike the dangerous substances
that result from using typical energy sources such as Diesel.
There are many applications for renewable energy like air
conditioning, water pumping, and water irrigation in isolated
areas.
Fossil fuels are considered a solution for this case. Examples
of fossil fuels include wind energy, solar energy, biomass, etc.
Solar PV panels convert solar radiation into electricity. It has
applications related to low power devices. Solar energy does not
produce carbon, moreover, it is inexhaustible and does not result
in noise from moving parts as the case of wind turbines
mechanism [1]. The research and study of PV systems increased
significantly in recent years more particularly in urban areas in
order to maximize the obtained power from solar PV sytems.
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Chaouki Ghenai
SREE Department
University of Sharjah
Sharjah, UAE
cghenai@sharjah.ac.ae
Solar energy can be used in wide variety of applications and
projects. Examples include communication systems, industry,
UPS devices, and remote water supplying to rural zones that are
far from main electricity supply [2]. Solar energy is suitable
option for water pumping in rural areas because solar panels are
easy to install, and they require low maintenance. On the other
hand, solar energy suffers from low efficiency and intermittence
due to continuous changing weather conditions like during rainy
weather. Time of the day also affects solar radiation since it is
directly related to humidity, wind speed, and temperature [3].
Other challenges that are associated with solar energy are
accumulation of dust on the surface of the panels and solar hot
spots. For solving weather conditions changes issues and
drawbacks, Maximum power point tracking (MPPT) systems
besides weather forecasting systems can be integrated into the
whole solar power system in order to maximize the output power
and predict solar irradiance using weather conditions values.
One more additional option is involving more renewable power
sources like Fuel cell [4]. The hybrid system that has solar panels
and Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cell (PEMFC) involves
additional main components like electrolyser and a storage tank
for storing the compressed hydrogen while solar power system
involves battery bank system for storage purpose. The
mechanism of the hybrid system is controlled by the battery
bank state of charge. The hybrid system is energized by solar
energy during high state of charge, but it gets energized by fuel
cell during low state of charge.
MPPT systems rely on algorithms for getting the maximum
power from the panels. One conventional algorithm that is easy
to implement is Perturb and observe (P&O). This algorithm
causes oscillation behavior around the maximum power point
for the operation point.
Some designs for hybrid water pumping systems were
proposed before. These designs mainly involved solar power
system besides other renewable power systems. A design was
proposed for wind-solar PV hybrid power system with battery
backup in remote regions [5]. The design utilized renewable
energy for water pumping in some locations which are Dhahran,
Riyadh, Nejran, Guriat and Jeddah. One more hybrid design
relied on the combination of solar panels and wind turbines [6].
That design utilized backup batteries. A design in [7] had off-
grid solar panels in addition to wind turbines. One design
 involved fuel cell and solar panel [8]. The panels in that design
had separate MPPT Control mechanism. Another design had
also fuel cell and solar panels in [9]. That design utilized fuzzy
logic as a basis for its MPPT approach to ensure that the
operation of the water pump is at maximum power. The design
used three-phase induction motor as output.
The rest of the paper: section 2 demonstrates the equations
of the PV panels and fuel cell besides the equivalent circuits.
Section 3 shows the proposed design and the corresponding
implementation simulation results. The last component of the
paper is the conclusion to summarize the outcome of the
simulation results.
II. HYBRID SYSTEM COMPONENTS
Solar cells are the main elements that form Solar PV panels.
These solar cells are arranged in either series or parallel
configuration. That arrangement gives the parameters of the
one-diode equivalent model for a single solar cell. The
equivalent circuit of one PV cell is shown in Fig. 1. The circuit
has two resistors Rs and Rsh besides a diode and a current
source. The voltage Vp can be determined with respect to these
components.
The output voltage can be represented by a function of the
photocurrent that depends on load current according to solar
irradiation level [2]. The output voltage can be determined as
follows:
− +
= −
Iph Rs
Rsh
Id
Fig. 1. PV cell equivalent circuit.
PEMFC uses the chemical energy that is produced from the
reaction between fuel, hydrogen, and oxidizer results in
obtaining electrical energy as expressed in (2). The temperature
effects are considered in the range between 60∘C and 100∘C.
Fig. 2 shows the cross-sectional components of a PEMFC.
Fig. 2. PEMFC components.
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1
+ → +ℎ + (2)
2
III. THE PROPOSED HYBRID SOLAR-FC SYSTEM
The overall proposed hybrid water pumping system is shown
in Fig.3. The proposed system has solar panels, PEMFC, battery
bank, electrolyzer, hydrogen storage tank [10], voltage
regulator, boost converter, DC water pump motor. The system
uses P&O MPPT algorithm to extract the highest amount of
power from the solar panels. The panels are used to charge the
battery bank as well as powering the electrolyzer. Fig.4 shows
the block components of the solar PV system with MPPT. It can
be noted that the custom Neural Network block has three main
inputs which are connected to stair generator blocks. Each one
of these blocks has either temperature values in Celsius, wind
speed in m/s, or humidity percentage. Additional block which
holds temperature values is connected to the solar PV panels
block. The voltage across solar PV panels is connected to the
blocks that applies the P&O MPPT algorithm.
Voltage Battery DC motor
regulator bank and pump
(1)
PV system Fuzzy logic
with MPPT management
component
Hydrogen Fuel
Electrolyzer
storage tank cell
Vp
Fig. 3. The proposed hybrid system.
Fig. 4. Solar system blocks involving MPPT and forecasting systems.
The simulated irradiance is shown in Fig. 5. It was simulated
by neural network block using temperature, wind speed, and
humidity values. Each combination of these values corresponds
to a specific solar irradiance value, for example, when the
temperature, wind speed, and humidity are 37, 5.2, and 37
respectively, irradiance has a value which is close to 200. The
used time interval was 24 hours period where each 3 hours
correspond to one irradiance value. The values of temperature,
 wind speed, and humidity were obtained from real
measurements in a normal day in summer in Sharjah as shown
in table. 1. It can be noted that the highest irradiance value in
that day was close to 800 while the lowest value was close to
200. The highest value was recorded during afternoon time.

Fig. 7. Simulink voltage regulator.

The fuel cell operates mainly by the inputted fuel inside it

Fig. 5. Irradiance values. and produces output voltage at its output terminals. The flow of
fuel is directly related to the battery bank state of charge. The
TABLE 1. WEATHER FORECASTING VALUES
35 33 32 31 31 36 38 37
flow depends on the state of charge. High fuel flow is enabled
Temperature
when the battery bank state of charge is greater than 70%,
in Celsius otherwise the fuel flow is low when the state of charge value is
smaller than 70%. Figs. 8-9 demonstrate the mechanism of
Wind speed 3.9 2.2 1.7 3.6 2.2 3 4.4 5.2 controlling the fuel flow based on the state of charge value. It
in m/s can be noted that the flow of fuel in Fig. 8 (b) remains zero as
Humidity 42 46 48 41 34 30 32 37 long as the value of state of charge in Fig. 8 (a) remains the same
percentage at 75% or increases more. The fuel flow in Fig. 9 (b) continuous
to increase in case the state of charge in Fig. 9 (a) decreases more
than 27.7%.
The pressure in pascal is shown in Fig. 6. This pressure was
related to the storage tank of the fuel cell system. Fig. 7 shows
the components of the voltage regulator that is used in the hybrid
system to adjust the voltage of the solar panels for charging the
batteries to a value that is close to 12v. The used voltage
regulator consists of three resistors, one op-amp, one transistor,
and one diode.

(a)

(b)
Fig. 8. (a) High state of charge value (0.75) (b) Low corresponding fuel flow
rate output (0.5).

Fig. 6. Simulated pressure of the storage tank.

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 (a)
(b)
Fig. 9. Low state of charge value (0.277) (b) High corresponding fuel flow
rate value (0.916).
Fig. 10 shows the obtained DC voltage when solar panels are
the primary power source by the battery bank when we get state
of charge value which is higher than 70% while Fig. 11 shows
the obtained DC voltage when the fuel cell system is used to
power the DC water pump when the state of charge for batteries
is less than 70%. It can be noted that the DC voltage for solar
case was ranging between 11.95v and 13v due to the effect of
the voltage regulator in order to suit the operation of the DC
water pump motor. The DC voltage values of fuel cell case were
close to 12.5v which was also appropriate for energizing the
water pump DC motor.
Fig. 10. DC voltage of batteries.
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Fig. 11. DC voltage of fuel cell.
Figs. 12-13 show the blocks of the DC water pumping motor
together with the obtained output speed of the DC water pump
electric motor that is used in the proposed design. The DC water
pump system consists of motor and driver main block, manual
switch, measurement block, and switch blocks for reverse and
brake. The measurement block was used to measure the speed
of the DC water pump in rpm. The reverse and brake blocks can
be used in order to stop the operation of the DC water pump or
reverse the direction. It can be noted that the speed is constant
due to the stable output DC voltage values from all the cases of
operation. The speed value was maintained constant at 100,000.
Fig. 12. DC motor blocks.
Fig. 13. DC motor speed output.

IV. CONCLUSION
We demonstrated a hybrid water pumping power system
design in rural and isolated zones. The PV/FC hybrid system
was implemented by SIMULINK to obtain the output voltages
and motor speed. Other parameters were also obtained such as
the fuel flow rate, hydrogen storage tank pressure, and solar
irradiance. The system involved some primary components
which are solar panels with P&O MPPT algorithm and PEM fuel
cell. Weather forecasting system was integrated in the proposed
design by relying on Neural Network block to obtain solar
irradiance values using three measured parameters which are
temperature, wind speed, and humidity in a time interval of 24
hours in a normal day in summer in Sharjah. Each parameter was
connected to the custom Neural Network block separately.
Battery management system in the proposed design relied on the
control mechanism of fuzzy logic principle. The simulation
results of the proposed maintained demonstrated that constant
output speed can be obtained when the fuel flow rate is
controlled with respect to battery bank state of charge values.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
We acknowledge University of Sharjah support.
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