Open Access

ARTICLE

A Coordinated Control Strategy for an Off-Grid DC Microgrid Coupling PV and AWE Hydrogen Production

Shuo Tian^1,2, Zetao Ma^2,*, Jie Shu^1,2, Kang Bie², Changhong Wu^1,2, Caijun Jiang³
1 School of Energy Science and Engineering, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, China
2 Guangzhou Institute of Energy Conversion, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Guangzhou, China
3 China Nuclear Power Engineering Design Co., Ltd., Shenzhen, China
* Corresponding Author: Zetao Ma. Email:
(This article belongs to the Special Issue: Hydrogen Energy Systems: Storage, Power-to-Hydrogen, and AI-Enabled Design, Planning, and Operation)

Energy Engineering https://doi.org/10.32604/ee.2026.078142

Received 24 December 2025; Accepted 26 February 2026; Published online 09 April 2026

Abstract

Hydrogen production by water electrolysis, especially alkaline water electrolysis, has become a promising way to storage surplus energy for off-grid microgrids with high penetration of solar energy. To tackle the deterioration of system stability resulted from solar power fluctuation, this paper proposes a coordinated strategy for an off-grid DC microgrid coupling photovoltaic (PV) and alkaline water electrolyzer (AWE). First, a detailed model, considering power constraint related to the AWE temperature in particular, is developed for the PV/AWE/battery microgrid. Secondly, a distributed coordinated strategy, consisting of an adaptive droop control for an AWE and an analogous virtual synchronous generator control for a battery, is proposed to stabilize the DC bus voltage of the microgrid. Two case studies are conducted to validate the effectiveness of the coordinated strategy. In Case 1, it shows that the AWE power fluctuation can be reduced by up to 5.8% of the rated power compared to traditional droop control. While in Case 2, the strategy can adaptively adjust the AWE power based on the electrolyzer temperature and the battery can provide power correspondingly to stabilize the DC bus voltage. The simulation results show that proposed strategy can effectively improve the stability and flexibility of the system.

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Keywords

Renewable energy source; microgrid; hydrogen-electric coupling system; power-to-hydrogen; coordinated control

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