Development of a dynamic regenerative fuel cell system

The development of a regenerative Integrated Renewable Energy Experiment (IRENE) is presented. IRENE is a laboratory-scale distributed energy system with a modular structure which can be re-configured to test newly developed components for generic regenerative systems integrating renewable energy, electrolysis, hydrogen and electricity storage and fuel cells. A special design feature of this test bed is the ability to accept transient inputs from and provide transient loads to real devices as well as from simulated energy sources/sinks. The findings of this study should be of interest to developers of small-scale renewable-regenerative systems intended to displace fossil fuel systems. Developing an IRENE-like system with commercial products currently available is a challenging integration task. Various strategies for assimilating the components are discussed and the necessary modifications presented. Virtually all of the major components have required modification to achieve a cohesive and functional system. The integration issues considered fall into three general categories: power conditioning, control/communication compatibility and component reliability. An example of a generalized load/resource profile illustrating a variety of dynamic operation regimes is presented.