Model-based Parametric Study for Comparison of System Configurations and Control of a Hydrogen Hybrid Cargo Vessel

The current state of research in marine energy systems has concentrated on conventional diesel systems, while limited literature is available on the configuration and control of alternative energy sources such as hydrogen hybrid systems, which have attracted increasing interest recently owing to the energy transition. This paper presents a modelling and control study for conceptual retrofitting of a general cargo vessel to a hydrogen-hybrid version. Generic fuel cell, battery, and converter models are used, enabling easy adaptation to various powerplant sizes and ship types. A robustly coordinated Energy Management Strategy (EMS), which can be implemented for different vessel’s power profiles, was developed for power sharing, DC bus voltage control, and battery State of Charge (SoC) regulation. The total installed fuel cell power and battery capacity were heuristically selected from a range of power profiles of the ship. A database of fuel cells with stacks from different manufacturers was created to test different combinations in terms of fuel consumption, cost, and weight, based on the framework of the problem. Uncertainties in terms of fuel prices are presented using normal distribution graphs. The system configurations and control results are presented for one power profile of the vessel and the average fuel costs. It is demonstrated that with the proposed control method, the power losses are less than 1%, the DC bus voltage fluctuations are less than 0.5%, and the battery SoC remains between 35-65% for the entire duration of the analysed power profile. The configuration with eight stacks of 150 kW has the lowest total fuel cost (730 $) with an average difference of 7.1% from the other solutions, and the lowest total weight (10.54 tons) with an average difference of 15.4% from the other configurations. Overall, this study demonstrates the efficient configuration and control of hybrid energy systems using parameterized components.