Improving voltage harmonic compensation of a single phase inverted-based PEM fuel cell for stand-alone applications

• We present the modeling of a stand-alone single phase inverted-based fuel cell.
• We evaluate two new methods for inverter output voltage control and harmonic compensation.
• Control methods achieve acceptable levels in voltage harmonic compensation.

Fuel cell (FC) is an efficient energy conversion technology that is growing rapidly and will have a significant role to play in a number of energy end-use sectors, from small-scale applications to large-scale power plants. In this paper, two new methods for voltage harmonic compensation of a stand-alone single phase inverted-based FC are presented and evaluated. The stand-alone power system under study consists of: 1) Proton-Exchange-Membrane (PEM) FC with unidirectional DC/DC converter, which converts the DC voltage delivered by the FC to the DC bus voltage; 2) single-phase pulse width modulated (PWM) inverter; 3) transformer; 4) passive filter; and 5) linear and non-linear loads. The dynamic model of this system and the non-sinusoidal output-based controls applied to the PWM inverter for voltage regulation and harmonic compensation are detailed in this paper, and evaluated by simulation under different linear and non-linear loads. Simulation results show the effectiveness of the two purposed methods for voltage harmonic compensation to acceptable levels defined in grid codes.