Control Strategy of Fuel Cell and Supercapacitors Association for a Distributed Generation System

This paper proposes an innovative control strategy for a voltage-regulated dc hybrid power source employing polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell as the main energy source and supercapacitors as the auxiliary power source for a distributed generation system. This strategy is based on a standard dc link voltage regulation, which is simpler than standard state machines used for hybrid source control, and free of chattering problems. Its originality lies in using only the storage device for supplying the energy required to achieve the dc link voltage regulation. Therefore, the main source of the hybrid system is considered as a standard load, working only in regenerative braking, to keep the storage device charged. The general structure of the studied system, the control principle of the hybrid source, the realization of the experimental bench, and the experimental validation are all presented.