Energy management system for hybrid PV systems supplying autonomous measuring stations

Outdoor measurement is frequently done far away from any grid connected power supply. Therefore different solutions have to be found. One possibility of supplying the measuring equipment is a PV hybrid system which provides energy from photovoltaic and an additional energy supplier. The energy which cannot be consumed immediately is stored in a battery. As an additional energy supplier a fuel cell is used in this case. For guaranteeing an efficient and reliable operation of the energy supply system an energy management system is introduced in this paper. The energy management system has several tasks: providing information about the status of the power supply system, securing enough stored energy for supplying the measurement equipment in the case of failure, scheduling the additional energy supplier and maintaining the battery.