Novel power electronic interface for grid-connected fuel cell power generation system

•A fuel cell power generation system was composed of a DC–DC power converter and a DC–AC inverter.•A voltage doubler based topology was adopted to configure the DC–DC power converter.•A dual buck power converter and a full-bridge power converter were applied to the DC–AC inverter.•The DC–AC inverter outputs a five-level voltage.•The DC–AC inverter performs the functions of DC–AC power conversion and active power filter.

A novel power electronic interface for the grid-connected fuel cell power generation system is proposed in this paper. This power electronic interface is composed of a DC–DC power converter and a DC–AC inverter. A voltage doubler based topology is adopted to configure the DC–DC power converter to perform high step-up gain for boosting the output voltage of the fuel cell to a higher voltage. Moreover, the input current ripple of the fuel cell is suppressed by controlling the DC–DC power converter. The DC–AC inverter is configured by a dual buck power converter and a full-bridge power converter to generate a five-level AC output voltage. The DC–AC inverter can perform the functions of DC–AC power conversion and active power filtration. A 1.2 kW hardware prototype is developed to verify the performance of the proposed power electronic interface for the grid-connected fuel cell power generation system. The experimental results show that the proposed power electronic interface for the grid-connected fuel cell power generation system has the expected performance.