Grid-Connected PEM Fuel Cell with Multi-Pulse Multilevel Inverter

Abstract:

Application of multi-pulse multilevel inverters is considered in this paper for distributed generation. A five-level twelve-pulse neutral point clamped inverter has been combined with a proton exchange membrane fuel cell in order to investigate load following characteristics of the fuel cell. The fuel cell implemented with a three-phase multi-pulse multilevel inverter is adept of delivering single-phase and three-phase loads both in islanded and grid-connected approach. Changes in power demand from no-load to full-load (120 kW) have been applied to study the characteristics of the system from the perspective of how it can follow the load changes in load demand. It has been observed that the fuel cell model is adept of following power request as per requirement; however, there is a response time of few seconds, because the reformer for the fuel cell requires time to generate fuel and the fuel cell requires time for chemical reactions to take place in it. Implementations of six-pulse and twelve-pulse five-level neutral point clamped and flying capacitor inverters show that total harmonic distortions for six-pulse and twelve-pulse five-level neutral point clamped inverters to be 1.066219% and 0.406149% respectively as compared to 2.466889% and 1.5104075% for flying capacitor inverters. It has been observed that with twelve-pulse neutral point clamped inverter, the output voltage waveform is smoother and close to sinewave. The results of the research work is presented with analyses to validate that multi-pulse multilevel neutral point clamped inverter is a better way out for the fuel cell power generation model as this type of inverters produces smoother waveforms to improve power quality with lower harmonics.

• Periodical: International Journal of Engineering Research in Africa (Volume 49)
• Pages: 54-67
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.4028/www.scientific.net/JERA.49.54
• Online since: June 2020
• Authors: Akshay Kumar Saha*
• Keywords: Fuel Cell, Inverter, Multilevel, Multi-Pulse

References

[1] Y. Tian, M. Beniddris, S. Sulaeman, S. Elsaiah, and J. Mitra, Optimal feeder reconfiguration and distributed generation placement for reliability improvement, Proc. International Conference on Probabilistic Methods Applied to Power Systems (PMAPS), 2016, pp.1-7.

DOI: 10.1109/pmaps.2016.7764202

[2] F. Meng, B. Chowdhury, and M. Chamana, Three-phase optimal power flow for market-based control and optimization of distributed generations, IEEE Transactions on Smart Grid, vol. 2, 2016, pp.1-9.

DOI: 10.1109/tsg.2016.2638963

[3] G. Nannapaneni, A. Amaniampong, T.M. Masaud, and R. Challo, Optimal allocation of SCIG and DFIG based distributed generation considering load uncertainty and line outage: a comparative study, Proc. IEEE Power & Energy Society Innovative Smart Grid Technologies Conference (ISGT), 2016, pp.1-4.

DOI: 10.1109/isgt.2016.7781283

[4] G.A. Quiroga, H. Kagan, J.C.C. Amasifen, C.F.M. Almeida, N. Kagan, and E. Vicentini, Study of the distributed generation impact on distributed networks, focused on quality of power, Proc. 17th International Conference on harmonics and Quality of Power (ICHQP), 2016, pp.855-860.

DOI: 10.1109/ichqp.2016.7783376

[5] D. Zhou, F. Gao, E. Breaz, A. Ravey, A Miraoui, and K. Zhang, Dynamic phenomena coupling analysis and modelling of proton exchange membrane fuel cells, IEEE Transactions on Energy Conversion, 2016, vol. 31, pp.1399-1412.

DOI: 10.1109/tec.2016.2587162

[6] S.G. Malla, and R.K. Vadrevu, Novel controller scheme for grid connected fuel cell, Proc. International Conference on Electrical, Electronics, and Optimization techniques (ICEEOT), 2016, pp.4425-4430.

DOI: 10.1109/iceeot.2016.7755555

[7] C. Cai, H. Jou, K. Wu, Y. Shen, and J. Wu, Novel active power line conditioner integrating fuel cell and battery set, Proc. IEEE 11th Conference on Industrial Electronics and Applications (ICIEA), 2016, pp.1453-1458.

DOI: 10.1109/iciea.2016.7603814

[8] K.M.S.Y. Konara, M.L. Kolhe, and A. Nishimura, Grid integration of PEM fuel cell with multiphase switching for maximum power operation, Proc. IEEE International Conference on Power System Technology (POWERCON), 2016, pp.1-5.

DOI: 10.1109/powercon.2016.7753981

[9] Y. Wu, E. Breaz, F. Gao, D. Paire, and A. Miraoui, Nonlinear performance degradation prediction of proton exchange membrane fuel cells using relevance vector machine, IEEE Transactions on Energy Conversion, 2016, vol. 31, pp.1570-1582.

DOI: 10.1109/tec.2016.2582531

[10] K. Ettihir, L. Boulon, and K. Agbossou, Energy management strategy for a fuel cell hybrid vehicle based on maximum efficiency and maximum power identification, IET Electrical Systems in Transportation, 2016, vol. 6, pp.261-268.

DOI: 10.1049/iet-est.2015.0023

[11] M. Chemsi, K. Agbossou, and A. Cardenas, Neural network back propagation algorithm control for PEM fuel cell in residential applications, Proc. IEEE Electrical Power and Energy Conference (EPEC), 2016, pp.1-6.

DOI: 10.1109/epec.2016.7771771

[12] G.D. Devi, M.A. Sabeena, C. Shankar, and V. Kirbakaran, Effect of temperature on the power output of a PEM fuel cell in a test bed condition, Proc. International Conference on Energy Efficient Technologies for Sustainability (ICEETS), 2016, pp.908-911.

DOI: 10.1109/iceets.2016.7583877

[13] S. Satpathy, S, Padhee, K. C. Bhuyan, and G.B. Ingale, Mathematical modelling and voltage control of fuel cell, Proc. International Conference on Energy Efficient Technologies for Sustainability (ICEETS), 2016, pp.781-786.

DOI: 10.1109/iceets.2016.7583853

[14] P.N. Ashita, Fuzzy hysteresis based power sharing controller for grid tied operation of a fuel cell, in Proc. IEEE 6th International Conference on Power Systems (ICPS), 2016, pp.1-5.

DOI: 10.1109/icpes.2016.7584154

[15] Y. Nassif, and H. Hamdan, Modelling and parameter observation of proton exchange membrane fuel cell, Proc. International Conference on development of E-Systems Engineering (DeSE), 2016, pp.270-275.

DOI: 10.1109/dese.2015.46

[16] Y. Wang, H. Liu, C. Lu, and B. Zhou, PEM fuel cell health assessment using a geometrical approach and Mahalanobis distance, Proc. 12th World Congress on Intelligent Control and Automation (WCICA), 2016, pp.1312-1316.

DOI: 10.1109/wcica.2016.7578457

[17] K. Javed, R. Gouriveau, N. Zerhouni, and D. Hissel, PEM fuel cell prognostics under variable load: a data-driven ensemble with new incremental learning, Proc. International Conference on Control, Decision and Information Technologies (CoDIT), 2016, pp.252-257.

DOI: 10.1109/codit.2016.7593569

[18] J. Chen, C. Xu, C. Wu, and W. Wu, Adaptive fuzzy logic control of fuel-cell-battery hybrid systems for electric vehicles, IEEE Transactions on Industrial Informatics, 2016, vol. 99., pp.1-9.

DOI: 10.1109/tii.2016.2618886

[19] D.M. Ali, A simplified dynamic simulation model (prototype) for a stand-alone polymer electrolyte membrane (PEM) fuel cell stack, Proc. 12th International Middle-East Power Systems Conference, 2008, pp.480-485.

DOI: 10.1109/mepcon.2008.4562321

[20] M.Y. El-Sharkh, A Rahaman, M.S. Alam, A.A. Sakla, P.C. Byrne, and T. Thomas, Analysis of active and reactive power control of a stand-alone PEM fuel cell power plant, IEEE Transactions on Power Systems, vol. 19, pp.2022-2028, (2004).

DOI: 10.1109/tpwrs.2004.836191

[21] A.K. Saha, S. Chowdhury, S.P. Chowdhury and Y.H. Song, Application of solid-oxide fuel cell in distributed power generation, IET Renewable Power Generation, 2007, vol. 1, pp.193-202.

DOI: 10.1049/iet-rpg:20070025

[22] A.K. Saha, S. Chowdhury, S.P. Chowdhury and Y.H. Song, Dynamic model of PEM fuel cell with fuzzy logic controller, Proc. International Universities Power Engineering Conference (UPEC), 2007, pp.753-757.

DOI: 10.1109/upec.2007.4469044

[23] B.M. Grainger, Medium voltage DC network modelling and analysis with preliminary studies for optimized converter configuration through PSCAD simulation environment, B.S Mech. Eng. thesis, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, USA, (2011).

[24] C. Gomathi, N. Nagath, S.V. Purnima, and S. Veerakumar, Comparison of PWM methods for multilevel inverter, International Journal of Advanced Research in Electrical, Electronics and Instrumentation Engineering, 2013, vol. 2, pp.6106-6114.

[25] C. Govindaraju, and K Baskaran, Optimized hybrid phase disposition PWM control method for multilevel inverter, International Journal of Recent Trends in Engineering, 2009, vol. 1, pp.129-134.

[26] M. Ma, X. He, Wenping, W. Cao, X. Song, and B. Ji, Optimized phase disposition pulse-width modulation strategy for hybrid-clamped multilevel inverters using switching state sequences, IET Power Electronics, 2015, vol. 8, pp.1095-1103.

DOI: 10.1049/iet-pel.2014.0748

[27] B. Geethalakshmi, and P. Dananjayan, A combined multipulse-multilevel inverter based SSSC, Proc. International Conference on Power Systems, 2009, pp.1-6.

DOI: 10.1109/icpws.2009.5442662

[28] F. Wang, System harmonics reduction using multipulse AC fed PWM voltage source inverters, Proc. IEEE Power Engineering Society Winter Meeting, 1999, pp.1265-1268.

DOI: 10.1109/pesw.1999.747396

[29] D. Soto, and T.C. Green, A comparison of high-power converter topologies for the implementation of FACTS controllers, IEEE Transactions on Industrial Electronics, 2002, vol. 49, pp.1072-1080.

DOI: 10.1109/tie.2002.803217