Optimizing resilient parallel refueling operations: relaxed stochastic economic mobility scheduling for fuel cell vehicles with multiple hydrogen storage systems

Abstract

The growing demand for hydrogen-based mobility highlights the importance of management strategies for hydrogen refueling stations (HRSs), particularly in handling uncertainties related to hydrogen demand, energy forecasts, and market prices. This paper presents a sophisticated approach for managing an HRS powered by renewable energy sources (RESs) that addresses these uncertainties. The HRS is designed to support the simultaneous refueling of multiple hydrogen electric vehicles, including light vehicles and buses, and operates in both off-connected without access to the hydrogen market and on-connected with access to the hydrogen market. The connection to the hydrogen market allows for the purchase of hydrogen when RESs are insufficient and the sale of excess hydrogen. Additionally, a buffer-tank is integrated into the system to store surplus hydrogen, which can be converted to energy and sold to the electrical market when prices are favorable. The proposed strategy incorporates Boolean relaxations and a stochastic scenario-based approach within a model predictive control framework to enhance robustness against uncertainties and reduce computational complexity. Numerical simulations show that the strategy optimizes the use of multiple tanks for parallel refueling and ensures effective HRS operation by meeting hydrogen demands, satisfying operational constraints, minimizing costs, and maximizing profits. Furthermore, when compared to other strategies in the literature with a modeling and control perspective, incorporating degradation factors into control settings significantly reduces unnecessary electrolyzer switching, leading to a 30% decrease in operating expenses and over 2,000 fewer switching events annually, while the relaxed framework achieves nearly a 50% reduction in computation time with both open-source and commercial solvers (e.g., GUROBI).