Power battery design for fuel cell trucks considering power sources degradation*

Fuel cell trucks (FCV) show the huge potential in low-carbon process. In this paper, the proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) is used as main power source to drive vehicle and power battery is chose as auxiliary power source and to store regenerative energy. Due to the slow dynamic response of fuel cell system, the power battery plays a key role to cope with rapid load change. The paper proposes a co-design method to select optimal power battery size and achieve energy management of vehicle powertrain. The proposed method considers power sources degradation and aims to minimize the total cost including power battery capital cost, hydrogen consumption cost and degradation cost. The results show that the optimal power battery size is 19.44kWh under CHTC-HT driving cycle and 25.92kWh under CWTVC driving cycle which are smaller than 53 kWh battery of a 49 tons fuel cell truck of FOTON, and energy management can ensure power demand of vehicle.