MPPT of a PEMFC based on air supply control of the motocompressor group

In this paper, advanced control of the motocompressor group for Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cell (PEMFC) is addressed.The response of a fuel cell (FC) system depends greatly on the air and hydrogen, flow and pressure regulations, and, heat and water management. This paper proposes to compute the optimal value for the oxygen stoichiometry reference in order to maximize, at each computing time, the output FC power. This paper is a first, if modest, attempt to use the Maximum Power Point Tracking (MPPT) technique to a system based on a PEMFC associated to an air motocompressor. The proposed technique is independent from the chosen PEMFC and motocompressor control technique. It is shown that the MPPT applied in this paper allows increasing the output PEMFC power by over 10%. If the output PEMFC power is fixed and imposed by the load, this technique allows reducing the consumption of hydrogen. Simulation results are presented and show the benefit obtained by applying the proposed technique.