A management device includes a potential usable power calculator that computes a measurement value or an estimated value for a potential usable power which is the amount of power available when the power consumption of an electrical appliance and a potential feed-in amount that can be sold are excluded from the power output from the solar power device; a planned usage determination unit that identifies a planned usage time that a user plans to use a designated appliance; an effective time determination unit that identifies a continuous effective time when a physical quantity representing a state that changes due to the designated appliance using the potential usable power is within a range that is effective for a user; and a scheduler that creates an operation schedule indicating at least an operation start time for the designated appliance on the basis of the planned usage time and the continuous effective time.

The present application relates to an arrangement for supplying energy to isolated buildings. The arrangement comprises at least one energy generating installation for providing an electrical current, at least one electrolyzer for producing hydrogen from water using the electrical current from the energy generating installation, at least one first chemical reactor for at least partially hydrogenating at least one substrate with an extended -conjugated system using the hydrogen formed in the electrolyzer, at least one storage tank for storing the substrate hydrogenated at least partially in the first chemical reactor, at least one second chemical reactor for at least partially dehydrogenating the at least partially hydrogenated substrate which was produced in the first chemical reactor and stored in the storage tank with the release of hydrogen, and at least one fuel cell for the oxidation of the hydrogen release in the second chemical reactor with the release of energy.

An apparatus (10) configured to determine reactant purity comprising: a first fuel cell (11) configured to generate electrical current from the electrochemical reaction between two reactants, having a first reactant inlet (13) configured to receive a test reactant comprising one of the two reactants from a first reactant source (7, 5, 16); a second fuel cell (12) configured to generate electrical current from the electrochemical reaction between the two reactants, having a second reactant inlet (14) configured to receive the test reactant from a second reactant source (5); a controller (20) configured to apply an electrical load to each fuel cell and determine an electrical output difference, OD.sub.t, between an electrical output of the first fuel cell (11) and an electrical output of the second fuel cell (12), and determine a difference between a predicted output difference and the determined electrical output difference, OD.sub.t, the predicted output difference determined based on a historical output of difference and a historical rate of change in said output difference determined at an earlier time, said controller (20) configured to provide a purity output indicative of the test reactant purity at least based on the difference between the predicted and determined output difference.

An energy management system 1 comprises a control unit 540 that, when a unit price of the fuel cell is higher than a power purchase unit price, controls an SOFC 110 in a restrained state where output of the SOFC 110 is restrained.

A power control apparatus 20 used in a power control system provided with a fuel cell 33 which generates power while a current sensor 40 is detecting forward current flow, a solar cell 11, and a storage battery 12, the power control apparatus 20 includes a pseudo-output unit 50 configured to generate a pseudo current to be detected by the current sensor 40 and a controller 27 configured to control the pseudo-output unit 50, wherein the controller 27 acquires at least one of a charge level of the storage battery 12 and an output value of the solar cell 11 and controls a power generation amount of the fuel cell 33 based on at least one of the charge level and the output value, together with the pseudo current detected by the current sensor 40.

A method of controlling a fuel cell system, a method of controlling a fuel cell automobile, and a fuel cell automobile are provided. When the SOC of a battery gets closer to an upper limit, there is a risk that overcharging of the battery may occur. In this case, using a BAT converter, inverter terminal voltage is stepped up to FC open circuit voltage or higher, whereby a step-up type FC converter is placed in an interruption state.

A heater assembly includes a plurality of fuel cell stack assemblies which each have a plurality of fuel cells, a fuel inlet, and an air inlet; a fuel supply conduit which communicates fuel to the fuel inlets; and an air supply conduit which communicates air to the air inlets. An orifice is disposed between the fuel supply conduit and the fuel inlet or between the air supply conduit and the air inlet of each fuel cell stack assembly. The plurality of fuel cell stack assemblies are arranged in fuel cell stack assembly groups such that the orifices of each of the fuel cell stack assembly groups are configured to provide a magnitude of restriction that is unique to their respective the fuel cell stack assembly group, thereby providing uniformity of flow of the fuel or the air to the plurality of fuel cell stack assemblies.

An HEMS 500 that performs a power management in a consumer 1 that includes one or more loads 40 that consume power and an SOFC unit 100 that performs a load following operation calculates, for each time zone, predicted power consumption, and thereafter, displays information indicating an exceeding time zone in which the predicted power consumption in the consumer exceeds a first threshold value of the SOFC unit 100 and information indicating a non-exceeding time zone in which the predicted power consumption falls short of a second threshold value.

An electrical power system, including a fuel cell system having a plurality of fuel cell segments and an energy storage system electrically coupled to the fuel cell system. The energy storage system including a plurality of energy storage system technologies, an energy storage system direct current (DC) bus configured to electrically connect the plurality of energy storage system technologies to the fuel cell system, and an energy storage system technologies management system configured manage impedance of the energy storage system and electric coupling of the energy storage system and the fuel cell system.