Design analysis and dynamic control of PEM fuel cell for standalone applications

Ever increasing energy consumption and pollution caused by burning of fossil fuels to meet our energy requirements have led researchers to focus on alternate forms of energy which are clean. Solar, wind and fuel cells are the areas in which research is going on with fast pace. Solar and wind have their drawbacks since electricity is generated only when sun shines or wind blows while fuel cells can supply electricity 24×7 without any environmental degradation, provided they are fueled continuously. Thus fuel cells turn out to be an ultimate source of clean energy where hydrogen fuel combines with oxygen to produce electricity with heat and water as the byproduct. Thorough analysis of Proton Exchange Membrane FC with mathematical modeling is done in the paper. To control voltage magnitude and power flow from PEM fuel cell feeding the distributed load through a three-phase parallel-connected inverter, a PWM controlled technique is modeled here. The 3-phase parallel-connected inverter ensures power flow with reduced total harmonic distortion in current and voltage waveforms. Supply from fuel cell is fed to boost converter to step up the voltage to desired level. Modeling and simulation is done in MATLAB, Simulink environment.