Energy storage has become a fundamental component in renewable energy systems, especially those including batteries. However, in charging and discharging processes, some of the parameters are not controlled by the battery’s user. That uncontrolled working leads to aging of the batteries and a reduction of their life cycle. Therefore, it causes an early replacement. Development of control methods seeks battery protection and a longer life expectancy, thus the constant-current–constant-voltage method is mostly used. However, several studies show that charging time can be reduced by using fuzzy logic control or model predictive control. Another benefit is temperature control. This paper reviews the existing control methods used to control charging and discharging processes, focusing on their impacts on battery life. Classical and modern methods are studied together in order to find the best approach to real systems.

Diagnosis of intermittent failures is relevant for productive processes which sustain a high level of maintenance caused by failures. Systems including electrical contacts suffer a considerable amount of intermittent failures which are usually not diagnosed. A characterization of the failure dynamics may save unnecessary repairs, and enable a better planning component substitution. This paper presents a new concept in failure diagnosis, the modeling of intermittent failure dynamics. It develops two methodologies for modeling intermittent failure dynamics, and generating information for maintenance scheduling.

A feasibility study for the installation of Wave Energy Converters (WEC) in a Spanish Mediterranean port is evaluated in this paper. The final aim is to evaluate the possibility of building a new infrastructure which combines a breakwater and a WEC able to provide energy to the commercial port of Valencia. An estimation of the wave power potential is made according to existing databases from different sources. A review of the existing WEC types is carried out in order to choose the most suitable technology for its installation in a port environment. The authors discuss the main advantages and issues of the integration of WEC in port breakwaters. A prospective study for the Port of Valencia is made, considering the port energy demand evolution, historical data on wave energy potential and the port expansion plans. We conclude that Overtopping Devices (OTDs) are the most suitable ones to allow the good integration with the new breakwater needed for the expansion of the Port of Valencia and we give an estimation on the power available from the resource in our case study.

Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cell (PEMFC) fuel cells is a technology successfully used in the production of energy from hydrogen, allowing the use of hydrogen as an energy vector. It is scalable for stationary and mobile applications. However, the technology demands more research. An important research topic is fault diagnosis and condition monitoring to improve the life and the efficiency and to reduce the operation costs of PEMFC devices. Consequently, there is a need of physical models that allow deep analysis. These models must be accurate enough to represent the PEMFC behavior and to allow the identification of different internal signals of a PEM fuel cell. This work presents a PEM fuel cell model that uses the output temperature in a closed loop, so it can represent the thermal and the electrical behavior. The model is used to represent a Nexa Ballard 1.2 kW fuel cell; therefore, it is necessary to fit the coefficients to represent the real behavior. Five optimization algorithms were tested to fit the model, three of them taken from literature and two proposed in this work. Finally, the model with the identified parameters was validated with real data.