Non-linear load compensation in Fuel Cell grid interfaced system using active power filter

The increasing global warming concerns and diminishing fossil fuels have made us necessary to look for alternative sources of energy. Fuel Cell technology holds promise towards sustainable power generation, it being pollution free and using readily available fuels. This paper presents the modeling, control and design analysis of a three-phase Grid-interactive Fuel Cell system with active filter functions. The main focus of this paper is to control the active power supplied by the Fuel Cell Distributed Generation system while compensating harmonics and reactive currents caused by the nonlinear loads using shunt active power filter. The developed Fuel Cell model is connected to the DC-side of the voltage source inverter for interfacing with the grid. Thus the same inverter is utilized as power converter to inject the power generated from the Fuel Cell to the grid and to act as active power filter to compensate load current harmonics and load reactive power demand. The designed controller either regulates the power flow between the Fuel Cell and the Grid or works as an active power filter or performs both the functions simultaneously. The simulation model of the overall system is developed in MATLAB/Simulink environment using SimPower Systems blocksets and then PIL simulated using TMS320F2812 DSP. The results are obtained for different operating conditions with varying load demands to prove the effectiveness of the entire system.