Energy Management Strategies for Fuel Cell Hybrid Systems

Abstract

In this chapter, the energy management strategies for fuel cell hybrid systems are addressed. To control the energy flow between the fuel cell, the energy storage system and the electrical load in fuel cell hybrid vehicles (FCHVs), three energy management strategies based on the fuel cell efficiency map are presented and validated through an experimental setup, which is developed to emulate FCHVs. The resulting hydrogen consumptions are compared with two references: the consumption of the pure fuel cell case, a vehicle without hybridization, and the optimal case with the minimum consumption. The optimal consumption for a given vehicle is determined through a methodology proposed that, unlike other previous methodologies, avoids the discretization of the state variables. The experimental results show that the operation in real time with high efficiency is possible.