Electrical Implementations of An Empirical Electrolyser Model for Improved Matlab/Simulink Simulations

Abstract

Empirical electrical electrolyser models have proven to be effective in simplifying the analysis of multiple systems involving electrolyser. However, the conventional representation of current as an input of the electrolyser model present challenges for circuits involving power converters specifically in Matlab/Simulink implementations. This work presents an alternative representation of one of such models, using Lambert W function to use voltage as the independent variable. The function is implemented by using lookup tables to overcome slow calculations and algebraic loop errors. After validating the accuracy of the new representation against referred publications, a basic circuit using a non-isolated DC/DC boost converter is implemented to compare the performance of the conventional electrolyser model and the new representation. The simulation results show that the proposed representation not only works successfully in such systems, but also improves the simulation time up to 13% while fixing the inherent limitations of the conventional electrolyser model.