A High Voltage Gain Interleaved DC-DC Converter Integrated Fuel Cell for Power Quality Enhancement of Microgrid

Farhan Mumtaz, Nor Zaihar Yahaya, Sheikh Tanzim Meraj, Narinderjit Singh Sawaran Singh (), Md. Siddikur Rahman and Molla Shahadat Hossain Lipu ()
Additional contact information
Farhan Mumtaz: Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering, Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS, Seri Iskandar 32610, Perak, Malaysia
Nor Zaihar Yahaya: Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering, Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS, Seri Iskandar 32610, Perak, Malaysia
Sheikh Tanzim Meraj: Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering, Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS, Seri Iskandar 32610, Perak, Malaysia
Narinderjit Singh Sawaran Singh: Faculty of Data Science and Information Technology, INTI International University, Persiaran Perdana BBN, Putra Nilai, Nilai 71800, Negeri Sembilan, Malaysia
Md. Siddikur Rahman: Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering, Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS, Seri Iskandar 32610, Perak, Malaysia
Molla Shahadat Hossain Lipu: Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Green University of Bangladesh, Dhaka 1207, Bangladesh

Sustainability, 2023, vol. 15, issue 9, 1-21

Abstract: Fuel cells have drawn a lot of interest in recent years as one of the most promising alternative green power sources in microgrid systems. The operating conditions and the integrated components greatly impact the quality of the fuel cell’s voltage. Energy management techniques are required in this regard to regulate the fuel cell’s power in a microgrid. The active/reactive power in the microgrid should be adjusted in line with US Energy Star’s regulations whereas the grid current needs to follow the standard set by IEEE 519 2014 to enhance the power quality of the electrical energy injected into the microgrid. Uncontrolled energy injection from the fuel cell can have serious impacts including superfluous energy demand, overloading, and power losses, especially in high power and medium voltage systems. Although fuel cells have many advantages, they cannot yet produce high voltages individually to compensate for the demand of a microgrid system. Due to these reasons, the fuel cell must be interfaced with a DC-DC converter. This research proposes a novel high voltage gain converter integrated 1.26 kW fuel cell for microgrid power management that can boost the fuel cell’s voltage up to 20 times. Due to this high voltage gain, the voltage and current ripple of the fuel cell is also reduced substantially. According to the analysis, the proposed converter demonstrated optimal performance when compared to the other converters due to its high voltage gain and extremely low voltage ripple. As a result, the harmonic profile of the microgrid current persists with a reduced THD of 3.22% and a very low voltage ripple of 4 V. To validate the converter’s performance, along with extensive simulation, a hardware prototype was also built. The voltage of the fuel cell is regulated using a simplified proportional integral controller. The operating principle of the converter integrated fuel cell along with its application in microgrid power management is demonstrated. A comparative analysis is also shown to verify how the proposed converter is improving the system’s performance when compared against other converters.

Keywords: fuel cell; DC-DC converter; microgrid; medium voltage; energy management; power quality; hydrogen; energy conversion (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/15/9/7157/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/15/9/7157/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:15:y:2023:i:9:p:7157-:d:1132259

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().