Hybrid Fuel Cell/Supercapacitor using a Series Converter

This paper proposes a new hybrid energy source comprising a fuel cell (FC) interfacing to a bank of supercapacitor (SC) through a newly proposed converter, which is a transformer-based converter. This transformer is fed by an inverter to control the current of the FC. The presented topology offers proper utilization of SC and high efficiency in a steady state. Operation modes, including its model, are given. Moreover, a control method to ensure that the constraints of FC meet its requirement is proposed. The simulation results and experimental results under a given load profile to validate the proposed system.