A combination of high prices of fossil fuels and the increased awareness of their
negative environmental impact has influenced the development of new cleaner energy
sources. Among various viable technologies, fuel cells have emerged as one of the most
promising sources for both portable and stationary applications.
Fuel cell stacks produce DC voltage with a 2:1 variation in output voltage from no
load to full load conditions. Hence, to increase the utilization efficiency and system
stability, a power conditioner consisting of DC-DC and DC-AC converters is required
for load interface. The design of power conditioners is driven by the application. This
dissertation presents several different solutions for applications ranging from low-power
portable sources for small electronics and laptop computers to megawatt-power
applications for fuel cell power plants. The design and analysis for each power
conditioner is presented in detail and the performance is verified using simulations and
prototypes. Special consideration is given to the role of supercapacitors who act as the additional
energy storage elements. It is shown that the supercapacitor connected at the terminals of
a fuel cell can contribute to increased steady state stability when powering constant
power loads, improved transient stability against load transients, and increased fuel
efficiency (i.e. reduced hydrogen consumption).
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:tamu.edu/oai:repository.tamu.edu:1969.1/ETD-TAMU-2721 |
| Date | 15 May 2009 |
| Creators | Harfman Todorovic, Maja |
| Contributors | Enjeti, Prasad |
| Source Sets | Texas A and M University |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Book, Thesis, Electronic Dissertation, text |
| Format | electronic, application/pdf, born digital |
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