Design, Modelling and Simulation of a Fuel Cell Power Conditioning System

In this paper we present work carried out in order to stabilize the output voltage (V-O) of a 1 kW Horizon fuel cell (FC). The work involves the design, modeling and simulation of a power conditioning system (PCS). In the process to stabilize the voltage, it is required to also reduce the input current ripple and to improve the system response to load changes. We present here preliminary results that show that the system works, with the voltage smoothed, the input current ripple reduced and the response time increased. This work also covers a comparative evaluation of the dynamic behavior of three converter topologies employed in power conditioning: boost converter, sepic converter and interleaved boost converter. The simulation results for the three topologies show that the output voltage of the fuel cell (FC) was stabilized. Furthermore, the results indicate that the interleaved boost converter is a better topology compared to the boost and sepic topologies in terms of our work.