Dynamic operation and control of a stand-alone PEM fuel cell system

An energy autonomous system is required to supply power to remote areas or islands. This paper presents a control strategy for a large-scale Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cell (PEMFC) system used in a stand-alone application. The studied system consists of the dynamic model of a PEMFC that has been validated with experimental data, a dc/dc boost converter, a dc/ac Voltage-Source Converter (VSC) and various controllers. The voltage and frequency control scheme of the VSC is designed based on feed-forward and decoupling compensation techniques to lessen the impact of the load dynamics. Moreover, the control of the boost converter is developed to mitigate current ripple of the FC. The model was implemented in a MATLAB/Simulink software environment. The obtained simulation results demonstrate the performance of the control system when the system is subjected to various load variations.