Grid-Forming Fuel Cell System for an Islanded AC Grid

Abstract

This paper proposes a two-stage converter that can black start an isolated AC Microgrid with a Fuel Cell (FC) as the primary energy source. The first stage is connected to the FC and employs a Three-Leg Interleaved Boost DC/DC Converter (IBC), while the second is a Three-Phase Voltage Source Converter (VSC). The DC/DC stage utilizes a Cascade Voltage Control (CVC) to mitigate voltage fluctuations in the DC-link caused by the variability of the FC voltage. For the DC/AC stage, three distinct grid-forming (GFM) strategies are implemented with two of them with multi-loop cascaded structure and one with a single-loop structure. The power circuit of the system is simulated using the Real-Time Simulator (RTS) HIL 602+ from Typhoon-HIL, with the control strategies embedded on the Digital Signal Processor (DSP) TMS320F28379D - F28379D LaunchPad from Texas Instruments (TI). The performance of the cases are verified through CHIL simulations for a balanced and unbalanced inductive load steps. The results demonstrate that for both tests the GFM single loop structure presents smoother transients and shorter recovery times. Additionally, for the unbalanced loads, all the cases present similar results for the DC variables with more pronounced differences at the AC side.

Keywords

• Grid-Forming
• Fuel Cell
• Voltage-Source Converter
• Hardware-in-the-Loop