Interaction between fuel cell and DC/DC converter for renewable energy management

Abstract

The Proton Exchange Fuel Cell Membrane (PEMFC) is being investigated as an alternative power source for various applications supplies. This paper proposes analytical expressions to support the design, modeling, control and implementation of a fuel cell generation based on power electronics. The purpose of this paper is to study the influence interactions between fuel cell and Buck-Boost converter. This converter and its control are designed to be compatible with a fuel cell power source which exhibits a voltage variation as well as a slow transient response. The robust characteristics of the proposed control system provide a constant DC output voltage for a variety of load fluctuations, thereby limiting the power delivered by the fuel cell during a load transient. In addition, the proposed configuration simplifies the management of the power control and can interact with the fuel cell controller. The preliminary simulation results confirmed the feasibility of the proposed system.