Development of a 20 kW generic hybrid fuel cell power system for small ships and underwater vehicles

Fuel cells powered by hydrogen, with benefits as no emissions, low noise, high efficiency and specific power, are a superior alternative energy to small ships and underwater vehicles. In this work a proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) system was studied as a generic power source to both small ships and underwater vehicles. The PEMFC uses air at the cathode and supplies maximum power of 5.5 kW on water. Meanwhile, the experiments on a testation display that the maximum power of the PEMFC using pure oxygen increases by 47% to 8.1 kW at the same flow rate of the oxidant. Moreover, the tests of a 20 kW hybrid power system on water demonstrate that the system works well at maximum 23.37 kW where the outputs of the PEMFC and batteries are 4.83 kW and 18.54 kW respectively. The results confirm that the 20 kW system could be applied to the both ships through a small revision. Moreover, the PEMFC system fed by pure oxygen benefits the performance of the fuel cell ships.