Extracting optimal parameters of PEM fuel cells using Salp Swarm Optimizer

• Published in: Renewable energy Vol. 119; pp. 641 - 648
• Main Author: El-Fergany, Attia A.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier Ltd 01.04.2018
• Subjects: case studies; electric power; fuel cells; Parameters' extraction; polymers; Proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) stack; renewable energy sources; Salp Swarm Optimizer; swarms; Total of square deviations (TSD); Salp Swarm Optimizer; Proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) stack; Parameters' extraction; Total of square deviations (TSD)
• ISSN: 0960-1481; 1879-0682
• DOI: 10.1016/j.renene.2017.12.051

In the last years, significant attentions have been paid in the state-of-the-literature to have precise current/voltage (I/V) polarization curves of polymer exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs). This article presents a novel application of a very recent heuristic-based on technique, namely Salp Swarm Optimizer (SSO) to define the best values of unknown parameters of PEMFC model. The total of square deviations (TSD) between the actual and calculated results represents the objective function. The TSD is minimized by the proposed SSO-based methodology to insignificant values to ensure the concurrence and consistency between measured and estimated voltage points and subjects to set of constraints. Two test case studies of typical commercial stacked PEMFCs, namely NedStack PS6 and BCS 500-W PEM generator are performed to demonstrate the potential of the proposed procedure under various operating scenarios. Moreover, necessary comparisons to other optimizers under same data and conditions are in order. In addition to this, performance measures are made to evaluate the performance of the SSO. The simulations along with comparisons indicate that the proposed SSO-based on method is successfully used to characterize the PEMFC model precisely. •An efficient SSO-based method is presented for PEMFC parameters' extraction.•The proposed method is demonstrated on two commercial PEMFCs.•The cropped best results are compared with other challenging optimisers.•Necessary performance measures are performed to appraise SSO results.•Various operating conditions are simulated.