Efficient and ripple-mitigating dc–dc converter for residential fuel cell system

Proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) systems for residential application require efficient and ripple-mitigating power conditioning system (PCS). The key point to reach it, is the design and control of the dc–dc converter. Based on the theoretical and experimental analysis of the traditional converter, this paper proposes a novel parallel-series full bridge (P-SFB) dc–dc converter, and improves its phase shifting scheme. This paper also proposes a novel controller for low frequency ripple current suppressing applied on the converter. The experimental results verify that, the dc–dc converter achieves a peak efficiency of 95.5%. Therefore PCS’s maximum efficiency reaches 92.9%. And the input current ripple is reduced significantly with the new controller.