Research and Experimentation on Energy Management System for Inland Diesel-Electric Hybrid Power Ships

In order to reduce ship emissions and improve energy efficiency, fuel cell is integrated with diesel generator as hybrid power source for ship power system, in which the basic load is provided by diesel engine and fuel cell to ptovide the rest part when the power load demand turn greater than the basic. In this study, a hybrid power system consists of diesel and alternative energy that provide main power and auxiliary power in sequence has been developed with an optimal energy management strategy proposed to minimize fuel consumption. The MATLAB + SIMULINK simulation environment was adopted to conduct the hybrid power system model to investigate the effectiveness of optimal energy management strategy by comparing ship typical drive cycle with traditional energy management strategy. The results reveal that the proposed optimization method can improve fuel economy with the battery charging profile maintained in reasonable range, and proves that by usingthe intelligent energy mangement method, the running efficiency of diesel engine can be improved, hence satisfying ship power demand and accelerating the stability of the system.