Ultracapacitor and battery storage system supporting fuel-cell powered vehicles

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Ultracapacitor and battery storage system supporting fuel-cell powered vehicles

Napoli, A. di / Crescimbini, F. / Solero, L. / Pede, G. / Bianco, G.L. / Pasquali, M.

The paper deals with the study of an original on-board power system that combines battery, UC tank and FCs. This study is conceived as the first step of a project involving ENEA (Italian National Agency for New Technology, Energy and Environment) and the University 'Roma Tre', aimed at developing a FC-powered drive train, of hybrid type, for a city car, like the Fiat 600 Electric or the Piaggio Porter Microvett. The project, funded by the Italian Government in the framework of the new FC Research Project, foresees the realization of a drive train prototype being powered by a 5 kW DeNora Fuel Cell. Such a drive train prototype will be assembled and tested at the ENEA laboratories in Casaccia. The proposed propulsion system comprises a bi-directional triple-input/single-output dc-to-dc power electronic converter (PEC) being used to interface the FCs, the battery storage and the UC tank to the dc-link of the vehicle traction motor drive. The PEC is controlled in order to regulate both the FC output current and the UC tank input/output current, whereas the traction drive dc-link voltage is regulated by means of the battery-fed converter way. Battery current rate of charge will be limited in order to improve the battery life. The proposed propulsion system is investigated, for different driving cycles, in order to achieve optimal sizing of the power sources as function of either maximum total efficiency or total weight. The investigation of the FC powered vehicle with UC and battery storage is accomplished by means of a specific evaluation model developed within the Matlab programming environment.