Fuel Cell Current Ripple Mitigation by Interleaved Technique for High Power Applications

This paper presents a fuel cell (FC) current ripple mitigation by interleaved algorithm for high power DC distributed system supplied by a FC generator. The major problems of operating a FC in high power applications is high FC ripple current, in which may lead to reduce its stack lifetime. Thus, to improve the FC stack lifetime, a proposed parallel power converter with interleaving technique is chosen to boost a low DC voltage of FC to a DC bus utility level. The present interleaved step-up converters are composed of two and four identical boost converters connected in parallel. Converters are controlled by interleaved switching signals, which have the same switching frequency and the same phase shift. During the past decade, power electronics research has focused on the development of interleaved parallel converters. For an interleaving technique with a real FC source, this work is the first presentation; it is not just a FC simulation. So, the design and experimental verification of 1.2-kW prototype converters at a switching frequency of 25 kHz connected with a Nexatrade PEM fuel cell system (1.2-kW, 46-A) in a laboratory is presented. Experimental results corroborate the excellent system performances.