PEM fuel cell system as an autonomous power supplier

This paper describes the operation mode of a constructed fuel cell system under the aspect of an autonomous operation and shows the test reading in terms of efficiency and system power consumption. The aim is to obtain a location-independent power supply for the duration of two hours. Firstly, characteristic data of the proposed autonomous fuel cell system are presented, and then the procedural process flow from the viewpoint of the minimum system energy consumption is described. To control the whole chemical reaction process and to maintain stable operation conditions a control unit based on microcontrollers was developed and is described in the paper. The system automatically detects load changes and the control unit administers the necessary parameter changes quickly and reliably. The corresponding control procedures are presented in the paper.