A PV based system and fuel cells may not be mutually exclusive. They may work best if used together. Electrical energy from the PV based system can reverse the chemical reactions in the fuel cells, recharging them.
Dear Natarajan,
In addition to the previous answer, a fuel cell based energy conversion system could be more adapted for residential applications as it does not suffer from tight dependence on weather conditions (irradiance) that leads to power generation fluctuation (case of PV). But the two energy sources can be combined as described in our previous work I am attaching for you.
Regards,
Mohamed
The fuel cell is important part of the future energy sources for residential and transportation applications. There is no direct relation between fuel cell and weather parameters. From the other hand, the intermittent of the sun light make a limitation to the PV because of unreliability and intermittent. However, the idea of using the PV electricity generated power to produce hydrogen to be use later in fuel cell for electricity generation represent part of the future energy conversion.
If you are going to use PV to generate hydrogen, to use in fuel cells, you MUST capture the oxygen as well or the fuel cell will have to use air as the counter electrode and your efficiency will be poor. Use the fuel cell in reversible mode, pump in electricity and capture the hydrogen and oxygen. Then pump in the hydrogen and oxygen and harvest electricity. This is exactly what a NiMH battery does, and far more simply, and probably more efficiently.
There is an advantage to using fuel cells however despite my last post . . . in a NiMH battery the power / storage ratio is roughly constant whatever the size of battery. A fuel cell / gas tank combination can have its power / size ratio adjusted to the application - in particular the fuel cell could be quite small and the gas tank very large; this would be ideal for ships which need endurance but not much power (relatively speaking). If your discharge times are of the order of a day, however, I think fuel cells will struggle to be more economic than batteries.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK44130/ Link will be helpful
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