Study on power conditioning system for fuel cell

The output voltage of a fuel cell is low and has awide range. According to these characteristics, a power conditioning system (PCS) which is composed of DC/DC converter and DC/AC inverter is designed for the fuel cell. The phase-shifted full-bridge DC/DC converter is controlled with a single voltage loop. With the DC/DC converter, the low voltage output of the fuel cell is converted to a stabilized high DC and the high DC is inverted to sinusoidal AC voltage by the double loop controlled DC/AC inverter with the instantaneous voltage and current feedback control. The operation principles of the power conditioning system were analyzed and the effects of the parameters on the stability of the inverter were presented. Experimental results of the 0.5 kW prototype showed that the PCS has had the advantages of wide voltage input, high power density and low total harmonic distortion (THD) in output waveform. The PCS is useful for developments of fuel cells with high power density and high efficiency.