Grid-tied power conditioning system for fuel cell composed of three-phase current-fed DC-DC converter and PWM inverter

Abstract

This paper proposes a grid-tied power conditioning system for fuel cell, which consists of three-phase current-fed DC-DC converter and three-phase PWM inverter. The three-phase current-fed DC-DC converter boosts fuel cell voltage of 26-48 V up to 400 V with zero-voltage switching (ZVS) scheme, while the three-phase PWM(Pulse Width Modulation) inverter controls the active and reactive power supplied to the grid. The operation of the proposed power conditioning system with fuel cell model is verified through simulations with PSCAD/EMTDC software. The feasibility of hardware implementation is verified through experimental works with a laboratory prototype with 1.2 kW proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cell stack. The proposed power conditioning system can be commercialized to interconnect the fuel cell with the power grid.