The Development of the PEMFC Hybrid Power System for an Electric Vehicle

This thesis develops a hybrid Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cell (PEMFC) electric vehicle. The hybrid power system consists of a 3kW PEMFC, PV arrays, secondary battery sets, and a chemical hydrogen generation system. We further design battery management and energy control stratigies to enhance the system’s energy efficiency. Electric vehicles have the advantages of high efficiency, quiet operation, zero emission and diversity of electric sources. But the moving ranges of pure battery electric vehicles are limited by the battery capacity. Thus, hybrid PEMFC vehicles, which consist of PEMFC and secondary battery, were developed to extend the travelling range. However, the carry and storage of hydrogen are still problematic. Therefore, we design a chemical hydrogen generation system so that the driving distance can be extended by carrying sufficient chemical materials. This thesis contains four main tasks: subsystem modules, energy management design, system integration, and SimPowerSystem simulation and analysis. First, we simplify the subsystem control circuits so that the subsystems can work independently., Second, we design a hybrid power train that is composed of a PEMFC, a DC/DC converter, two lithium-ion battery sets, and electric components. We also design proper power management strategies so that the vehicle can be continuousely operated. Third, we integrate the PV arrays as an extra energy source, and build the chemical hydrogen generation system that can continuously provide hydrogen fuel. Last, we use Matlab/SimPowerSystem to build the hybrid electric vehicle model, and tune model parameters based on experimental data. We further conduct experiments for verification and show that the model can successfully predict the system responses. Furthermore, the developed hybrid electric vehicle can be used as a movable hybrid power station, which can regulate the grid power or provide power for remote areas. Based on these ideas, we further perform cost analysis and model optimization for custmized hybrid power systems. In the future, the proposed PEMFC electric vehicle can be developed as both transportation and stationary hybrid power systems.