Grid Integration of Fuel Cell with MPPT under Variable Air Flow Rate

Abstract: In the proposed work a proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) with variable air flow rate has been presented. Here, the main objective is to extract maximum power out of fuel cell at different air flow rates. The proposed scheme consists of DC-DC buck-boost converter with grid interfacing inverter. The DC-DC converter is controlled to perform maximum power point tracking under varying fuel cell conditions while grid interfacing inverter is controlled to evacuate the generated output power from fuel cell. It has also been demonstrated that the grid interfacing inverter may also be helpful in meeting the reactive power demand of nearby local loads so that grid always exchange power at unity power factor. Finally, detailed modelling and simulation results under MATLAB/SimPowerSystem environment have been presented to validate the proposed control algorithms.

Keywords: Fuel Cell, MPPT, Grid Integration, Inverter Control, DC-DC Converter, Renewable energy sources, Reactive power compensation.