Advancements in power conditioning units for electric vehicle applications: a review

Abstract

Fuel cells are renowned for their direct energy conversion, quiet operation, fuel flexibility and zero CO2 emissions. However, each fuel cell (FC) produces a very low output voltage of around 0.5-0.7 V. Therefore, it is necessary to design high gain DC-DC converters for boosting such low voltages either from a single FC or FC stack besides minimising the current ripples. Moreover, DC-AC converters are required to produce an AC voltage either for the single or three phase utility loads. This paper presents a review on various prominent DC-DC and DC-AC converter topologies. The performance of various DC-DC converter topologies is analysed in terms of number of components, converter switching frequency, galvanic isolation, power rating and efficiency. The salient features of potential DC-AC converters with low total harmonic distortion and high efficiency are presented. This paper is very useful for the design engineers in choosing the right topology.