In this paper we present work carried out in order to stabilize the output voltage ( V ) of a 1 kW Horizon fuel cell (FC). The work involves the design, modeling and simulation of a power conditioning system (PCS). In the process to stabilize the voltage, it is required to also reduce the input current ripple and to improve the system response to load changes. We present here preliminary results that show that the system works, with the voltage smoothed, the input current ripple reduced and the response time increased.This work also covers a comparative evaluation of the dynamic behavior of three converter topologies employed in power conditioning: boost converter, sepic converter and interleaved boost converter. The simulation results for the three topologies show that the output voltage of the fuel cell (FC) was stabilized. Furthermore, the results indicate that the interleaved boost converter is a better topology compared to the boost and sepic topologies in terms of our work.

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A Fuel cell stack inherently generates low unregulated voltage, which is not useful for most power supply applications. In order to make this voltage useful, often a power conditioning system that consists of a converter or inverter or a combination of both is connected intermediate to the fuel stack. Several topologies for converters and inverters exist. In this paper, the performance of a transformerless pulse width modulated dc-dc interleaved boost voltage multiplier converter with current ripple reduction capability is analyzed for PEMFC stack power conditioning applications. Key experimental results are included, which indicate that the stack output voltage was regulated and boosted, and highlight the voltage balancing challenge arising from interleaving.