Fuel cell based uninterrupted power sources

This paper presents the concept of providing a power source for essential utilities under emergencies for a power outage as long as 240 hrs. After a careful analysis of various options for providing longer duration back-up power sources, the authors are of the opinion that hydrogen-based fuel cells can be the ideal solution. When commercial mains is available, hydrogen is generated by operating the fuel cell in the electrolyser mode. This hydrogen is stored and utilized under emergency conditions to generate power through the fuel cell. The necessary power controller can source the stabilised power and can also source energy to generate hydrogen as well as charge batteries. The output demanded by the load will be converted from DC to the required AC source by the same controller