Graphical User Interface control for a solar/battery/hydrogen/fuel cell power plant

Author

Viljoen, Marius ; Pienaar, C.

Author_Institution

Fac. of Eng. & Technol., Vaal Univ. of Technol., Vanderbijlpark, South Africa

fYear

2013

fDate

9-12 Sept. 2013

Firstpage

1

Lastpage

5

Abstract

With today´s modern technology it is possible to control and monitor a fully automated power plant from far away. A Graphical User Interface (GUI) is needed to monitor various control parameters for the power plant. Using TCP/IP protocol over a Local Area Network (LAN) or a Wide Area Network (WAN) all the data can be speedily transferred from and to the power plant from any location. This paper focuses mainly on the development of the GUI. The setup of the communication link and the layout of the power plant will also be reviewed. The design of the GUI is focused on the monitoring of energy available from solar panels and then using the power to generate hydrogen which could be used at a later stage to produce electrical power with a PEM hydrogen fuel cell.

Keywords

fuel cell power plants; graphical user interfaces; hydrogen economy; local area networks; power engineering computing; solar power; transport protocols; wide area networks; GUI; LAN; PEM hydrogen fuel cell; TCP/IP protocol; WAN; battery power plant; communication link; control parameter monitoring; electrical power; energy monitoring; fuel cell power plant; fully automated power plant control; fully automated power plant monitoring; graphical user interface control; hydrogen generation; hydrogen power plant; local area network; power plant layout; solar power plant; wide area network; Batteries; Fuel cells; Generators; Graphical user interfaces; Hydrogen; Monitoring; Power generation; Graphical User Interface (GUI); Local Area Network (LAN); Programmable Logic Controller (PLC); Proton Exchange Membrane (PEM); Wide Area Network (WAN);

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

AFRICON, 2013

Conference_Location

Pointe-Aux-Piments

ISSN

2153-0025

Print_ISBN

978-1-4673-5940-5

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/AFRCON.2013.6757864

Filename

6757864