To deal with increasing energy consumption in the residential sector, distributed energy resources including photovoltaic (PV), fuel cell, etc. have been paid more and more attention. In this study, an optimization model is developed for the PV/Fuel Cell/Battery based residential energy system. While guaranteeing reliable system operation, the model may determine the optimal running strategies with annual running cost or annual CO2 emissions as the objective function to be minimized. In addition, besides the energy flows among the equipments within the hybrid energy system, the economic information including electricity tariff and natural gas price, as well as some policy issues (e.g., buy-back price) are also accounted. As the results of the model, besides the optimal electric and thermal balances, the rational utilization forms of PV module, fuel cell and battery can be also deduced. To verify the viability of the proposed approach, a numerical example is implemented and analyzed. The optimal operating strategies are deduced and compared from different perspectives. Furthermore, the results demonstrate that the PV module mainly contributes to the environmental performance of the assumed hybrid energy system, while the battery may be beneficial from the economic viewpoint. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.