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Modeling, Control, and Power Quality Evaluation of a PEM Fuel Cell-Based Power Supply System for Residential Use
M. Tanrioven and M. S. Alam, Senior Member, IEEE
AbstractThe use of fuel-cell (FC)-based power generation systems is expected to become more widespread in the near future due to better power quality, reliability, portability, and ecological constraints. The use of FC technology for electricity and heat generation for residential applications generated tremendous interest. Proton exchange membrane FCs (PEMFCs) are attractive for residential use due to its low operating temperature and fast startup characteristics. This paper focuses on the modeling, control (voltage and active power control), and simulation of PEMFC-based power supply system for residential applications. A proportionalintegral (PI)-type voltage and real power controller is usually implemented by controlling the fuel input into FC stack and adjusting the inverter modulation index. Furthermore, power-quality issues are evaluated based on the transformer connection type and harmonic content of the load for household appliances. Detailed simulation software has been developed using the Matlab software package. The topology chosen for the simulation consists of a 5-kW PEMFC, a single-stage-voltage-sourced pulsewidth-modulation inverter followed by an LC lter and a step-up transformer. The simulation results illustrate that the voltage at the load point and active power demand versus load variations can be achieved using the PI controller. The control parameters used involves inverter modulation index and phase angle. The power-quality evaluation conrms that the bus voltage harmonics meet the IEEE-519 requirements for all home appliances, which are modeled based on real measured values. However, system voltage and current harmonics can be affected either by the harmonic contents of load current or supply voltage overlap at resonance frequency. Index TermsControlling of proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cell (FC), modeling of PEMFC, power-quality evaluation.

Fig. 1.

Cell voltage versus current density.

I. I NTRODUCTION UEL CELLS (FC) basically convert chemical energy of hydrocarbon fuels, typically hydrogen directly into dc form of electrical energy. The commonly available FCs include polymer membrane, alkaline, phosphoric acid, molten carbonate, and solid oxide-based FCs [1].

Paper ICPSD-06-03, presented at the 2004 Industry Applications Society Annual Meeting, Seattle, WA, October 37, and approved for publication in the IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRY APPLICATIONS by the Energy Systems Committee of the IEEE Industry Applications Society. Manuscript submitted for review October 15, 2004 and released for publication July 10, 2006. The authors are with the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of South Alabama, Mobile, AL 36688-0002 USA (e-mail: malam@usouthal.edu). Color versions of Figs. 1 and 716 are available at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org. Digital Object Identier 10.1109/TIA.2006.882661

The main reasons for rushing the FC technology toward commercialization include fuel availability, modularity and cleanness of FC-based power generation. FCs are capable of GENERATING both electrical and thermal energy. Among the various types of FCs, proton exchange membrane FCs (PEMFCs) are particularly attractive for residential use due to their relatively low operating temperature ( 80 C) and good dynamic response [2]. An FC-based power system mainly consists of a fuel-processing unit (reformer), FC stack and power conditioning unit. The FC uses hydrogen as input fuel and produces dc power at the output of the stack. The performance of the stack is expressed by the polarization curve, which gives the relation between stack terminal voltage and load current, shown as in Fig. 1 [1], [2]. It is evident from Fig. 1 that the cell voltage decreases almost linearly as the load current increases. Therefore, the output voltage should be regulated at a desired value. To keep the polarization characteristic at a constant level, parameters such as cell temperature, air pressure, oxygen partial pressure, and membrane humidity needs to be controlled [3]. This paper considers the application of a PEMFC for residential use. The FC output voltage is modeled based on the FC load current. Since numerous FC-based power system topology can be chosen to meet the required criterion, in this paper, we selected a commonly used 5-kW (48-V) FC, a singlestage-voltage-sourced pulsewidth-modulation (PWM) inverter followed by a low-pass lter and a step-up transformer to perform voltage and real power control as well as powerquality performance evaluation with respect to residential load variations. It is assumed that the FC output voltage ranges from

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40 to 70 V. The simulation is performed based on the standard home appliances such as refrigerator, TV, microwave oven, washing machine, air conditioner, etc., as loads. To track the systems voltage and real power requirements, a proportionalintegral (PI)-type controller, which uses inverter modulation index and phase angle, is proposed for the PEMFC power plant. In addition, the quality of power should be monitored. The most common and hazardous power-quality problem is the presence of harmonics. Current harmonics are of particular concern due to their heating and torque effects on electrical equipment, interference with communication system, and causing malfunction in sensitive equipment operation. In addition, some systems may exhibit resonance modes around certain multiples of fundamental frequency, which may increase the impact of voltage or current harmonics. For instance the authors in [4] observed the high harmonics rate due to resonance in wind power stations. In [5], the authors investigated the inuence of distribution feeder design and feeder parameter variation on harmonic resonance and they found that transformer and conductor impedance magnitude and phase angle, conductor type, conductor arrangement (three phase, four wire, or single phase) and possible interruption of the neutral conductor in Y transformers has an effect system resonance mode. Tang and Wu [6] studied the resonance-related problems under various system operating conditions. In this paper, besides the PI controller, the aforementioned problems related to system harmonics and resonance interactions are also analyzed for the different cases of PEMFC-based power supply system. The cases include single and three-phase topologies with different transformer connection types. Power quality evaluation is repeated for the following operation modes: 1) without power-factor-correction capacitors (PFCCs) and harmonic content of the home appliances; 2) without PFCC and with consideration of harmonic content of the home appliances; 3) with PFCC and harmonic content of the home appliances; and 4) with PFCC and without considering the harmonic content of the home appliances. II. PEMFC M ODEL AND P OWER G ENERATION The performance of an FC is generally characterized by using the polarization curve, which is a plot of the FC voltage versus load current. The main factors, which affect the polarization curve, are cathode pressure, reactant partial pressure, cell temperature, and membrane humidity. The polarization curve is computed by using the Tafel equation [7], which subtracts the various voltage losses from the open circuit dc voltage, and is expressed as Vdc-stack = Vopen Vohmic Vactivation Vconcentration (1) where Vopen = No [Vo +(RT /2F ) ln(PH2 PO2/PH2 O PO )] is called the Nernst voltage or reversible voltage that exists at no load condition for a given temperature and pressure, Vohmic = Idc RFC is the resistive voltage loss due to the resistance of nonideal electrodes and connections and the resistance to proton ow in the PEM, Vactivation = No (RT /2F ) ln(Idc /Io ) is the voltage loss corresponding to the activation losses due to the rate of reactions taking place on the surface

Fig. 2. Voltage amplication topologies for FCs.

of the electrodes, and Vconcentration = c ln(1 (Idc /ILim )) is the voltage loss corresponding to the voltage change due to mass transport losses. In (1): cell number; No open cell voltage; Vo R universal gas constant; T temperature of the FC stack; F Faradays constant; hydrogen partial pressure; PH2 PH2 O water partial pressure; oxygen partial pressure; PO2 standard pressure in the pressure units used; PO charge transfer coefcient of the electrodes; current of the FC stack; Idc ILim limiting current of; exchange current of FC stack; Io c empirical coefcient for concentration voltage. The steady-state voltage for one cell (No = 1) versus cell current density is obtained based on (1) as shown in Fig. 1. In the gure, the current density i is dened as current per active area i = Idc /Aact . Due to series connection of cells in a stack, the total stack voltage is calculated as Vdc = No VCell and the stack power is dened as P = Vdc Idc . III. P OWER C ONVERTER T OPOLOGIES AND P OWER C ONDITIONING U NIT There are numerous power converter topologies for FC applications that can be chosen to meet the overall performance requirement. Since FC operates in the low voltage range (25100 Vdc ) and the grid voltage is relatively high (either 120 or 220 Vrms ) the voltage must be amplied either in the dc/dc stage or in the ac/ac stage as shown in Fig. 2 [8]. Design considerations depend on the voltage amplication stages and may be selected from several existing dc/dc converter and dc/ac inverter topologies. While forward pushpull half-bridge converter topologies belong to dc/dc stage, single bus with two paralleled half-bridge dual buses with two split half bridges and three-phase inverter topologies belong to dc/ac stages. Apart from these, several energy storage devices such as battery and ultra capacitors at various voltage levels can be used with any of the above congurations [9], [10]. As a result, numerous topological alternatives are available. The best option depends on the cost, desired performance, and application of the system.

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Fig. 3. FC-based power supply system.

power adjustment, power changes must be followed by a proper hydrogen ow rate adjustment. Fig. 4 depicts the block diagram of the voltage/active power controller. From Fig. 4, we observe that the output voltage is compared to the reference voltage command while the real power output is compared to the reference real power command. As a result, the voltage and real power error signals are sent to the voltage and real power controllers, respectively, to generate an appropriate control signal to the inverter and to the valve controller. The control variables, modulation index, and phase angle, can be calculated using the following equations: Vdc = Pac Vac m Vac Vr = sin( ) XT + XLine PLoad Vr cos() (4) (5) (6) (7)

Iac =

Idc = m Iac cos( + ). Neglecting the inverter losses, Pac can be expressed as Pac = Pdc = Vdc Idc .
Fig. 4. Voltage and active power control in an FC system.

(8)

The topology chosen in this paper for voltage/real power control and power-quality evaluation consists of a 48-V 5-kW PEMFC, a single-stage voltage-sourced PWM inverter followed by an LC lter and step-up transformer, which matches to the voltage amplication conguration in ac/ac stage. The advantage of this topology is that it uses the inverter bridge switches with negligible loss. As well as this, the transformer provides isolation between loads and FC. A simple representation of the considered FC-based power system consists of the PEMFC, power conditioning unit, transformer and load as shown in Fig. 3. Applying the PWM technique in the inverter, the ac voltage and apparent power at the inverter output can be expressed as a function of the modulation index and phase angle as shown in (2) and (3) [11], [12] Vac = m Vdc S= (2)

Inserting (5) into (8), we get sin( ) = Idc (XT + XLine ) Idc (XT + XLine ) . = Vac m Vdc (9)

In (9), the FC current Idc can also be determined as a function of hydrogen ow rate [3] as Idc = 2F wH2 No MH2 (10)

where No is the number of cells in the stack, F is the Faraday number (96 485 C), wH2 is the molar ow of hydrogen, and MH2 is the molar mass of hydrogen. Substituting (10) into (9), the phase angle can be calculated as sin( ) = 2F wH2 (XT + XLine ) . No MH2 m Vdc (11)

Vac [Vr sin( ) + j (Vac Vr cos( ))] . (3) XT + XLine

In (2) and (3), m is the amplitude modulation index of the converter and is the ring angle of the inverter switches with respect to the angle of load bus voltage. Drawing more power from the FC with constant hydrogen ow rate reduces the FC output voltage, which in turn decreases the bus voltage. The reduction in voltage can be regulated by adjusting the modulation index of the inverter, which determines the reactive power ow as well. However, regulating the magnitude of the bus voltage alone is not enough to meet both voltage and active power requirements. Therefore, the second control variable, i.e., the phase angle must also be controlled by adjusting the ring angle of the inverter for slow and fast transient power adjustments. For steady-state

The model of the PEMFC and voltage/active power controllers used in the computer simulation is shown in Fig. 5. In this paper, PI controllers are used to generate the control signals, modulation index, and phase angle, expressed as [13] m = Ki1 (Vref Vac ) + Kp1 (Vref Vac ) m = Ki1 and = Ki2 (Pref Pac ) dt + Kp2 (Pref Pac ). (13) (Vref Vac ) dt + Kp1 (Vref Vac ) (12)

If the FC operates in a grid-linked environment, then the sum of active power (Pac,1 + Pac,2 ) coming from FC and grid is

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Fig. 6. Inverter and its output lter.

Fig. 5. Computer simulation model of the voltage and active power control of the FC plant.

compared to the real power command and the error goes to active power controller. In this case, may be expressed as = Ki2 [Pref (Pac,1 + Pac,2 )] dt + Kp2 [Pref (Pac,1 + Pac,2 )] . (14) IV. P OWER Q UALITY The power quality in an FC-based power system is affected by the harmonic contents of the current waveform injected to load/grid by the inverter and also by the harmonic currents produced by the nonlinear loads connected to the system. In addition, the harmonics injected by the inverter would increase if the FC connected to a distribution generation dc bus with devices such as photovoltaic and wind turbines. In this case, the inverter may inject not only its own harmonics but also harmonics generated by these other sources. Any distorted sinusoidal waveforms associated with voltage and currents can be represented by Fourier series as [14]

Due to the presence of lter and compensation capacitors in the electric distribution systems, they may operate at resonance near certain multiples of the fundamental frequency. To eliminate the negative effects of harmonic resonance, it is necessary to calculate the equivalent impedance, which can be done by the frequency scan technique. The basic implementation of this technique involves the injection of a sine wave current with a magnitude of 1 to the bus of interest. The resultant voltage is then measured at that bus, which is equivalent to required Thevenin impedance [15], given by Z= A. Output Filter It is necessary to design an output lter to achieve better harmonic reduction in the phase current and in the inverter output voltage. The lter conguration and its equivalent circuit are shown in Fig. 6. The PWM inverter output is then ltered using an inductor and a capacitor to provide a sinusoidal output voltage. If the switching frequency of insulated gate bipolar transistor is 10 kHz, it is necessary to design the lter at a cutoff frequency of about 650 Hz, which is almost 15 times lower than the switching frequency and 10 times higher than the fundamental frequency so as not to attenuate the 60-Hz frequency. The cutoff frequency is dened as fc = 1 650 Hz 2 Lf Cf (20) V V = Z = V. I 10 (19)

v (t) =
h=1

2 Vh sin(hwo t + h ) 2 Ih sin(hwo t + h )

(15) (16)

i(t) =
h=1

where Vh and Ih are the rms values for hth-order harmonic voltage and current, respectively. Nonlinear elements generally produce harmonics in distribution system and affect the quality of electric power. In general, the quality is referred to the total harmonic distortion (THD) for voltage and current, respectively, which are dened as [14]
1/ 2 2 Vh

where the values of Lf and Cf are selected as 1 mH and 600 F, respectively. V. S IMULATION R ESULTS A PI controller is used for the FC voltage and active power control, which adjusts the modulation index and phase angle according to load variations shown in Fig. 7. The series of step changes in power is converted to stack current to calculate the corresponding FC dc voltage. The transient and steadystate response of the system using the PI controller has been found to be excellent as shown in Figs. 912. From Figs. 912, it is obvious that the increase in load power increases the FC current, which results in decreased FC output voltage or vice-versa.

THDV =

h=2

V1
1/ 2 2 Ih h=2

(17)

THDI =

I1

(18)

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Fig. 7. Series of load (household appliances) switching.

Fig. 8.

Harmonic spectrums of (a) a light dimmer, and (b) a microwave oven.

TABLE I DATA OF THE HOME APPLIANCES USED IN THE SIMULATION

The data corresponding to various home appliances are shown in Table I. The home appliances prole varies from linear to nonlinear load with different harmonic levels. While some of the nonlinear home appliances such as television, computer, uorescent lamp, and light dimmer have high-current THD content, others such as microwave oven, refrigerator, and air conditioner have low-current THD content. For instance the harmonic spectrum of the light dimmer and microwave oven are given as in Fig. 8. Using the loads of household appliances, the results of voltage, active power control and power-quality analysis for the topology of Fig. 3 are shown in Figs. 1015 under a series of step changes depicted in Fig. 7. These results are based on 120 Vrms and 5 kW. The current and voltage of PEMFC corresponding to the load switching of Fig. 7 are plotted as a function of time in Fig. 9. Fig. 10 shows that the power conditioner maintains constant voltage output under load commutations of Fig. 7, and Fig. 11 shows the corresponding modulation-index adjustment. Following a step increase or decrease in the load current leads to FC voltage drop or increase, below or above its nominal value. Then, the PI controller stabilizes it with a short time delay.

Fig. 9.

FC voltage and current under a series of load commutations.

Fig. 10.

System output voltage control on the 120-Vrms base.

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Fig. 11.

Modulation-index adjustment corresponding to Fig. 7 load variations.

Fig. 12. FC output active and reactive powers on the 5-kW base (active power: solid line, reactive power: dashed line).

Fig. 14. Frequency scan results of the three phase topology with Yg , Y Y , ZigzagY , Yg Yg connected transformers for the cases of (a) without and (b) with considering the PFCC.

Fig. 13. Frequency scan results of single-phase topology with and without PFCC.

Fig. 12 shows the ac output power transferred to the load. From Fig. 12, it is evident that the output active and reactive powers endure time delay in meeting the load demand. Power quality evaluation is performed under single and three phase conditions with Yg , Y Y , ZigzagY , Yg Yg connected transformers to show the effects of transformer connection groups on system resonance mode and in turn, on power quality of the system. Fig. 13 shows the frequency scan results of the single-phase topology with and without PFCC with the sizes of 500 and 1000 volt ampere reactive (VAR). Fig. 14 shows the frequency scan results of the three -phase topologies with Yg , Y Y , ZigzagY , Yg Yg connected transformers for the cases of with and without considering the PFCC with the size of 1000 VAR. It is evident from Fig. 13

that single-phase mode dose not operate at resonance mode although the magnitude of system impedance with PFCC bank decreases as the frequency increases. The topology with three phase inverter followed by Yg , Y Y , ZigzagY , Yg Yg connected three-phase transformers reect series resonances around 800 930-Hz frequency as shown in Fig. 14(a). Besides, the topology with Yg transformer shows another series resonance point around 500 Hz frequency. However, as shown in Fig. 14(b), frequency response characteristics change drastically when a PFCC with the size of 1000 VAR is added to the system. This is because of the fact that design considerations have a substantial inuence on system resonance mode, which conrms the results drawn in [5] and [6]. As a result, in order to keep the system away from resonance and operate the system safely within prescribed limits of power quality, it is necessary to perform frequency scan analysis for the system conguration and accordingly capacitor banks should be sized carefully. The output voltage and current waveforms from the system were measured to evaluate their effect on the system. Fig. 15 shows THD rates of current and voltage at load terminal for single-phase case corresponding to the load switching of Fig. 7. The simulations are repeated for the cases of with/without

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Fig. 15. THDs of output (a) voltage and (b) current both without and with consideration of harmonic content of the home appliances for single phase.

Fig. 16. THDs of output (a) voltage and (b) current both without and with consideration of harmonic content of the home appliances for three-phase condition.

PFCC and also with/without consideration of harmonic content of the home appliances. Since Yg connected transformer among the considered transformer connection types reects two resonance points, it is selected as a worst case for power-quality evaluation. THD rates of current and voltage at load terminal for three-phase topology with Yg connected transformer is simulated for the same cases, as shown in Fig. 16. As stated in [4], PFCC equipment in power systems may cause serious resonance problems including high level of harmonics. The simulation in this paper also conrms that high level harmonics are detected at the fth and sixth load commutations. It is evident from Fig. 15 that voltage harmonics at load terminal meet IEEE 519 requirements for all home appliances. However, system THD rate of voltage is close to the design limit due to system harmonics, whose frequencies overlap with the resonance frequency. VI. C ONCLUSION This paper has presented an overall evaluation of a 5-kW PEMFC power plant in terms of stack voltage modeling, voltage and active power control, and power quality. A PI-type controller was proposed for the PEMFC power plant to satisfy the system requirements for voltage and active power. It is evident from computer simulation results that satisfactory

dynamic responses are obtained from the proposed control scheme. Furthermore, a detailed power-quality evaluation was carried out for the proposed PEMFC-based power system. The available harmonics in the system are the products of inverter and nonlinear loads generally present in a residence. The resultant THD of voltage stay below 5% limit and individual harmonics in the voltage waveform does not exceed the 3% limit, which are within the IEEE requirements. However, maximumrecorded THD rate of voltage is 4.75% in the three-phase topology due to resonance frequency in the system, which is pretty close to the 5% limit. R EFERENCES
[1] M. Farooque and H. C. Maru, Fuel cells-the clean and efcient power generators, Proc. IEEE, vol. 89, no. 12, pp. 18191829, Dec. 2001. [2] J. E. Larmine and A. Dicks, Fuel Cell Systems Explained. Chichester, U.K.: Wiley, 2000. [3] J. T. Pukrushpan, A. Stefanopoulou, and H. Peng, Modeling and control for PEM fuel cell stack system, in Proc. Amer. Control Conf., Anchorage, AK, May 2002, pp. 31173122. [4] J. Balcells and D. Gonzalez, Harmonics due to resonance in a wind power plant, in Proc. 8th Int. Conf. Harmonics and Quality Power, Oct. 1416, 1998, vol. 2, pp. 896899. (3a). [5] J. A. Ghijselen, W. R. Ryckaert, and J. A. Melkebeek, Inuence of distribution feeder design on resonances, in Proc. IEEE Power Eng. Soc. General Meeting, Jul. 1317, 2003, vol. 2, p. 1243.

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[6] Y. Tang and A. Y. Wu, Harmonics and system natural frequencies, in Proc. Cement Ind. Tech. Conf., Apr. 29May 3, 2001, pp. 5158. [7] D. Thirumalai and R. E. White, Mathematical modeling of protonexchange-membrane fuel-cell stacks, J. Electrochem. Soc., vol. 144, no. 5, pp. 17171723, May 1997. [8] G. K. Andersen, C. Klumpner, S. B. Kjaer, and F. Blaabjerg, A new green power inverter for fuel cells, in Proc. 33rd Annu. IEEE PESC, Jun. 2327, 2002, vol. 2, pp. 727733. [9] T. A. Nergaard, J. F. Ferrell, L. G. Leslie, and L. Jih-Sheng, Design considerations for a 48 V fuel cell to split single phase inverter system with ultracapacitor energy storage, in Proc. 33rd Annu. IEEE PESC, Jun. 2327, 2002, vol. 4, pp. 20072012. [10] R. Gopinath, K. Sangsun, H. Jae-Hong, M. Webster, J. Burghardt, S. Campbell, D. Becker, P. Enjeti, M. Yeary, and J. Howze, Development of a low cost fuel cell inverter system with DSP control, in Proc. 33rd Annu. IEEE PESC, Jun. 2327, 2002, vol. 1, pp. 309314. [11] K. Sedghisigarchi and A. Feliachi, Control of grid-connected fuel cell power plant for transient stability enhancement, in Proc. IEEE Power Eng. Soc. Winter Meeting, Jan. 2731, 2002, vol. 1, pp. 383388. [12] C. J. Hatziadoniu, A. A. Lobo, F. Pourboghrat, and M. Daneshdoost, A simplied dynamic model of grid-connected fuel-cell generators, IEEE Trans. Power Del., vol. 17, no. 2, pp. 467473, Apr. 2002. [13] V. S. C. Raviraj and P. C. Sen, Comparative study of proportionalintegral, sliding mode, and fuzzy logic controllers for power converters, IEEE Trans. Ind. Appl., vol. 33, no. 2, pp. 518524, Mar.Apr. 1997. [14] G. W. Mack and S. Santoso, Understanding power system harmonics, IEEE Power Eng. Rev., vol. 21, no. 11, pp. 811, Nov. 2001. [15] L. Jordaan and G. Atkinson-Hope, Harmonic impedance scan software as an analytical tool and a methodology for investigating resonance in power factor corrected plants, in Proc. Int. Conf. Elect. Power Eng., Aug. 29Sep. 2, 1999, pp. 225232.

M. Tanrioven received the B.Sc., M.Sc., and Ph.D. degrees from Yildiz Technical University, Istanbul, Turkey, in 1993, 1996, and 2000, respectively, all in electrical engineering. He is currently a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of South Alabama, Mobile. His research interests include power systems, power quality and harmonics, fuzzy systems, and alternate sources of energy.

M. S. Alam (S89M91SM95) received the B.S. and M.S. degrees in electrical engineering from Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology, Dhaka, Bangladesh, in 1983 and 1985, respectively, the M.S. degree in computer engineering from Wayne State University, Detroit, MI, in 1989, and the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering from the University of Dayton, Dayton, OH, in 1992. He is a Professor of electrical and computer engineering at the University of South Alabama, Mobile. His research interests include smart energy management, ultrafast computer architectures and algorithms, signal/image processing, pattern recognition, and digital system design. Dr. Alam is a Fellow of the Optical Society of America (OSA) and of the International Society for Optical Engineering (SPIE) and a member of the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) and American Institute of Physics (AIP).