Hy.Power — a technology platform combining a fuel cell system and a supercapacitor

Abstract

In a joint project, the Paul Scherrer Institut PSI, ETH Zurich, FEV Motorentechnik and Volkswagen have developed the fuel cell hybrid vehicle “Hy.Power”. Hy.Power is a technology platform for the demonstration of a powertrain combining a hydrogen fuel cell system designed for 40 kW peak net power output and a double‐layer capacitor arrangement with a peak power of 60 kW net. The gaseous hydrogen is stored in pressurized tanks of up to 350 bar. The potential of innovative technologies, such as newly designed bipolar plates and double‐layer capacitors as well as new air supply and humidification concepts, are tested under real conditions. The fuel cell system consists of six fuel cell stacks into which the media are fed in parallel. The performance of the Hy.Power technology demonstrator was successfully tested under extreme boundary conditions by crossing the Simplon Pass in the wintry Alps in January 2002.

Supercapacitor Module Sizing and Heat Management under Electric, Thermal, and Aging Constraints

“…The fuel cell vehicle that is considered in this study has the same characteristics as the Volkswagen Bora HY Power [45] developed by the Paul Scherrer Institut. The electric system of the vehicle consists of two electric sources (fuel cell and supercapacitors) and of two DC/DC converters connected to a load via a DC link (Figure 11.38).…”

“…96.297 characteristic voltage-current of a proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) [45], R cell , a and b can be used to perform calculations (Table 11.3). The total voltage provided by the PEMFC stacks is…”

Control of islanded industrial networks with fuel cell based distributed generation units and ultra-capacitor storage device

“…Because of recent high specific voltage and power density of UC banks, it is possible to eliminate the DC/DC converter for voltage regulation and use UC directly in parallel with the FC as shown in Figure 7. The direct integration of the UC bank is attractive, because the complexity, cost, weight and volume of the system are significantly reduced [27][28][29][30][31][32][33].…”

Investigating the Dynamics of a Direct Parallel Combination of Supercapacitors and Polymer Electrolyte Fuel Cells

“…In our laboratory two FCV projects were realised in recent years in collaboration with VW [3] and Michelin [4]. In both of these projects the fuel cell system was hybridised with an energy storage device based on SC.…”