A fuel cell control command device including: a catalyst potential calculation unit for calculating a catalyst potential of a cathode catalyst; a coating state calculation unit for calculating an oxide film formation amount of the catalyst; a command value candidate calculation unit for calculating a plurality of command value candidates including a combination of an estimated current, estimated total voltage, and a candidate control parameter, from which a power command value is obtained; a loss amount calculation unit for calculating an estimated loss for each combination; a provisional catalyst potential calculation unit for calculating an estimated catalyst potential for each combination; a deterioration amount calculation unit for calculating an estimated deterioration amount for each combination; and a command value calculation unit for selecting a combination having a minimum comprehensive index including the estimated loss and/or the estimated deterioration amount and outputting the selected combination as a command value.

An overvoltage management system for a fuel cell electric vehicle (FCEV) includes a power sensor configured to measure a power output by a fuel cell system of the FCEV, wherein the fuel cell system is configured to generate electric current for recharging a high voltage battery system of the FCEV and a control system to determine a power command for the fuel cell system, receive the measured power output by the fuel cell system, calculate a difference between the measured power output and the power command, and based on the calculated difference, control an integrator of a feedback controller for the fuel cell system to prevent windup of the feedback controller and an overvoltage malfunction of the high voltage battery system.

Methods and associated apparatuses for controlling the power of a fuel cell stack are disclosed. One disclosed method includes (i) determining to change the output power of the fuel cell stack to a target power value, (ii) determining the temperature of the fuel cell stack, and (ii) adjusting the output power of the fuel cell stack when the temperature of the fuel cell stack is greater than or equal to a predetermined temperature threshold. In this manner, the adjustment of the output power of the fuel cell stack can be adapted to the temperature of the fuel cell stack, thereby enabling the amount of water generated by the fuel cell stack to vary with temperature. Thus, the humidity of the membrane electrode in the fuel cell stack can be maintained within a reasonable range at different temperatures, thereby ensuring the operational efficiency of the fuel cell system.

A vehicle system for fuel cell electric vehicle (FCEV) includes a fuel cell system including a fuel cell stack, and one or more controllers configured to inject reactants to the fuel cell stack exiting a power conservation control of the fuel cell system prior to actuation of an accelerator in response to a drive intent operation to a vehicle component from among a plurality of vehicle components.

During some operations, a fuel cell system of a FCEV is operated in a voltage suppression mode when the FCEV is in park and power demand is low to reduce wear of the fuel cell system. However, in the voltage suppression mode, liquid water may accumulate in the fuel cell system, because of low flow of reactant gases which typically remove the water. If the FCEV exits the park state and undergoes a high acceleration, the water can inhibit reactant flow.

The present application relates to a warming-up control method for a fuel cell system in a starting process and a fuel cell system, applied to the technical field of fuel cells. The method includes: starting the fuel cell system, turning on a small-cycle cooling circuit, and pull-loading an output power to a first power; in response to an inlet temperature of a stack reaching a first temperature, rotating a three-way valve at a first rotating rate; calculating a variance of a cell voltage value; in response to the variance being smaller than a third threshold and reducing the variance to be within the first threshold, returning to the rotating the three-way valve at the first rotating rate until all turn-on of a large-cycle cooling circuit and all turn-off of the small-cycle cooling circuit; pull-loading the output power to a rated power.

A fuel cell-based generation system is provided. The fuel cell-based generation system includes a fuel cell subsystem comprising at least one fuel cell coupled to a power terminal which is configurable to connect with a power network; a battery subsystem comprising at least one battery coupled to the power terminal and configured to provide a state of charge (SoC) value of the at least one battery, the at least one battery being capable of discharging to the power network and charging from the at least one fuel cell; and a controller configured to operate the fuel cell-based generation system by coordinated control of the battery subsystem and the fuel cell subsystem with a power setpoint for the fuel cell subsystem, wherein the power setpoint for the fuel cell subsystem is based on a reference power setpoint provided to the fuel cell-based generation system.

A fuel cell comprising an upper plate and a lower plate, a stack of energy cells, the stack being disposed between the upper plate and the lower plate, the stack being divided into a plurality of energy cell stages, a plurality of collectors separating each energy cell stage, three inlet vents extending from the lower plate to the upper plate, over the entire height of the stack of energy cells, the three inlet vents being configured to respectively provide the energy cells with heat transfer fluid, comburent fluid and liquid fuel, and a movable piston is disposed in each of the inlet vents, each piston being configured so that its position in the inlet vent selectively opens one or more of the fluid ducts of one or more energy cell stages, and wherein each piston is driven independently of the other pistons.

A system and method for controlling power for a fuel cell are disclosed. The system includes: a fuel cell; a load device electrically connected to the fuel cell; a stack controller configured to set a stack limit current on the basis of a current output current of the fuel cell, the stack limit current configured to limit an output current of the fuel cell on the basis of an output voltage of the fuel cell; and a load controller configured to set a consumption limit current on the basis of the set stack limit current, the consumption limit current configured to limit a consumption current of the load device, the load controller being configured to control the consumption current of the load device to a value equal to or lower than the set consumption limit current.

A method for operating a fuel cell power plant is provided to deliver power and/or receive power from a load. The fuel cell power plant includes an energy storage system connected in parallel with a fuel cell system. The method for operating includes the steps of calculating and actively proportioning a current split between the fuel cell system and the energy storage system, and controlling the proportioning using fuel cell system air flow. In one embodiment, set point changes in the fuel cell system air flow are operationally independent from a fuel cell water management system that removes product water, humidifies inlet reactant gas, and/or cools the fuel cell stack. In another embodiment, the step of calculating the current split proportion includes the selection of points on a family of V/I curves within a range from 40% fuel cell air utilization to 99% fuel cell air utilization.