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Line-Interactive UPS Using a Fuel Cell as the Primary Source

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3012
Line-Interactive UPS Using a Fuel Cell
as the Primary Source
Haimin Tao, Member, IEEE, Jorge L. Duarte, Member, IEEE, and Marcel A. M. Hendrix, Member, IEEE
Abstract—This paper proposes a line-interactive fuel-cell-
powered uninterruptible-power-supply system. A three-port bidi-
rectional converter connects a fuel cell and a supercapacitor
to a grid-interfacing inverter. The system can operate in both
stand-alone and grid-connected modes. Moreover, an active fil-
tering function is integrated into the system. It is shown that a
supercapacitor can serve as both an active and a reactive energy
storage and can buffer the periodical low-frequency ripple in the
requested power. For connecting the system to the utility grid,
a high-performance single-phase phase-locked loop that incorpo-
rates an orthogonal filter is presented. Resonant controllers for
both the voltage and current regulations eliminate steady-state er-
ror and implement selective harmonic compensation. Simulation
and experimental results are provided to show the feasibility of
the proposed system and the effectiveness of the control methods.
Index Terms—Active filters, fuel cells, supercapacitors, uninter-
ruptible power systems.
I. I NTRODUCTION
S USTAINABLE energy electricity generation systems are
gaining popularity due to their environmental friendliness
[1]. As an alternative to the conventional uninterruptible-power-
supply (UPS) concept, small/micro distributed-generation (DG)
systems provide standby service during grid outages and, when
operated during peak load hours, potentially reduce energy
costs. From this perspective, a small/micro DG falls into the
category of UPS systems.
Among various alternative generation systems, fuel-cell
technology has generated a lot of interest. In contrast to the
short-time emergency power provided by the UPS systems that
rely on batteries, a fuel cell is able to support unlimited backup
time as long as hydrogen fuel is supplied [2]. When designed as
a line-interactive generator, a fuel-cell system flexibly operates
Manuscript received February 16, 2007; revised September 19, 2007. First
published February 22, 2008; last published July 30, 2008 (projected). This
work was supported by the Technology Foundation STW, the Dutch funding
agency for university research.
H. Tao was with the Electromechanics and Power Electronics Group, De-
partment of Electrical Engineering, Eindhoven University of Technology, 5600
MB Eindhoven, The Netherlands. He is now with Philips Lighting B.V., 5611
BD Eindhoven, The Netherlands (e-mail: haiman.tao@gmail.com).
J. L. Duarte is with the Electromechanics and Power Electronics Group,
Department of Electrical Engineering, Eindhoven University of Technology,
5600 MB Eindhoven, The Netherlands, and also with Philips Power Solutions,
5652 AM Eindhoven, The Netherlands (e-mail: j.l.Duarte@tue.nl).
M. A. M. Hendrix is with the Electromechanics and Power Electronics
Group, Department of Electrical Engineering, Eindhoven University of Tech-
nology, 5600 MB Eindhoven, The Netherlands, and also with Philips Lighting,
5611 BD Eindhoven, The Netherlands (e-mail: m.a.m.hendrix@tue.nl).
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TIE.2008.918472
0278-0046/$25.00 © 2008 IEEE
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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRIAL ELECTRONICS, VOL. 55, NO. 8, AUGUST 2008
in stand-alone or grid-connected mode according to the grid
conditions [3]. Due to the slow transient response of the fuel cell
[4], a storage element is necessary to assure proper operation
of the fuel cell under various load conditions [5], [6]. In terms
of transient energy storage, a supercapacitor is preferred over
batteries because of its much longer lifetime and higher specific
power.
Different control schemes for UPS systems have been re-
ported in the recent literature, including the conventional
multiloop control [7], repetitive-based control [8], multiloop
H-infinity control [9], down-sampled discrete-time internal-
model-based control [10], etc. Much research effort has gone
into the improvement of output voltage regulation, with the
aim of improving transient performance and reducing harmonic
distortion. However, a UPS that uses the emerging fuel-cell
technology in combination with supercapacitor storage is not
that extensively investigated. Recognizing the flexibility of a
hybrid system, we may expect added functionality and a better
system performance.
A line-interactive UPS system can be utilized as an active
power filter (APF) [11], [12], as has also been proposed in some
generation systems [3], [13]. The reactive power compensation
is beneficial for the power system network and increases the
transmittable power.
The power conditioning unit of the proposed fuel-cell UPS
system consists of a full-bridge grid-interfacing inverter and
a newly proposed three-port bidirectional dc–dc converter [6],
[14], [15]. The grid-connected inverter provides the necessary
interface of the system to the phase, frequency, and amplitude
of the grid voltage [1]. For this purpose, a high-performance
phase-locked-loop (PLL) structure for the single-phase inverter
[16] is presented. For controlling the inverter, resonant-type
controllers are proposed [7], [17]. It is shown that, by using
resonant controllers for both the current regulation in grid-
connected operating mode and the voltage regulation in stand-
alone operating mode, zero steady-state error and fast transient
response can be achieved. Moreover, the active filtering func-
tion can be realized by a suitable control strategy. It will also be
shown that a supercapacitor in a fuel-cell system can serve as
both an active and a reactive energy storage and can buffer the
periodical low-frequency ripple in the requested power. This
minimizes the dc-link capacitance and makes it possible to
use a small nonelectrolytic type. The lifetime and reliability
of the system can therefore be improved. The control of the
whole system is implemented with a TMS320F2808 digital
signal processor (DSP). Measurement results from a 3.5-kW
prototype are included.
TAO et al.: LINE-INTERACTIVE UPS USING A FUEL CELL AS THE PRIMARY SOURCE
Fig. 1. Proposed single-phase line-interactive UPS system using a fuel cell as the primary source and a supercapacitor as the transient energy storage, where Lf
and Cf form the inverter-output filter, Zl is the grid impedance, STS is a triac for connecting the system to the grid, and POC is the point of connection.
II. S YSTEM D ESCRIPTION
The topology of the proposed line-interactive UPS system
is shown in Fig. 1. A fuel cell is used as the primary source,
and a supercapacitor is employed as the transient energy stor-
age. The three-port converter interfaces the fuel cell and the
supercapacitor to the inverter and manages the power flow
in the system. The inverter output is connected to the grid
through a static transfer switch (STS)—a triac. Local loads
are coupled to the inverter output. The terminals that are
shared by the inverter output, local loads, and grid are named
the point of connection (POC). The system operates in line-
interactive mode. The initial implementation of the system is at
a power level for home applications. Therefore, a single-phase
version is considered throughout this paper. It is possible to
extend the system to a higher power level using a three-phase
configuration.
A. DC–DC Stage
Unlike conventional power converters, this dc–dc stage for a
fuel-cell power conditioning system has multiple power inputs.
A family of three-port converters [18] may be used. In this
paper, the triple-active-bridge (TAB) converter [6] was chosen.
The converter topology consists of a three-winding transformer
and three active bridges. The topology is bidirectional due to the
active bridges at all three ports. In addition to galvanic isolation,
this converter can easily match the different voltage levels at the
ports. The transformer’s leakage inductances are an integral part
of the circuit. Each bridge generates a high-frequency square-
wave voltage with a controlled phase angle. This circuit can
also be operated with soft switching by duty ratio control even
when the port voltage varies [19].
The control scheme for the dc–dc stage aims to simulta-
neously regulate the dc-link voltage and the fuel-cell power
with two bridge phase shifts as control variables. The controller
employs two PI controllers that are devoted to the regulation of
VDC and PFC , respectively. The supercapacitor sinks/sources
the power difference between the inverter and the fuel cell. This
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3013
Fig. 2. System power flow in the stand-alone mode of operation.
is a self-adjusting system matching the variations of the power
drawn by the inverter while the power of the fuel cell is kept
constant [19].
B. DC–AC Stage
A voltage source inverter (VSI) is used for dc–ac power con-
version and grid interfacing. The main function of the inverter
is to maintain a regulated output voltage when operating in
stand-alone mode, and when operating in grid-connected mode,
to inject reactive and harmonic current required by the local
loads, along with an optional constant real power, into the POC.
Low-voltage energy-storage devices can be used because their
voltages can be matched in the dc–dc stage.
III. C ONTROL IN S TAND -A LONE M ODE OF O PERATION
A. System Power Flow
In a stand-alone mode of operation, the system is discon-
nected from the grid, and the load is powered by the fuel cell.
Fig. 2 shows the power flow in the system. As the transient
energy storage, the supercapacitor plays two important roles.
First, in order to overcome the slow dynamics of the fuel
cell, the energy stored in the supercapacitor is used to handle
a short-time load mismatch. Second, the supercapacitor deals
with instantaneous power fluctuations. The power drawn by the
inverter from the dc-link capacitor is periodical, containing a
second harmonic component of the grid frequency. A common
3014
Fig. 3. Block diagram of the inverter control in the stand-alone operating mode with outer capacitor voltage PR control and inner inductor current proportional
(P) (gain Kc = 1.5) control, where KPWM = 400 is the inverter gain, KFI = 0.0469, KFV = 0.00244 are the feedback gains, m is the modulation index, rL
is the resistance of the filter inductor, and ZLD is the load impedance.
way to cope with this low-frequency power ripple is to use a
large electrolytic capacitor at the dc link for power decoupling
(CDC as shown in Fig. 1). However, the dc buffer capacitor of
an inverter is often the limiting factor in terms of reliability
and life span. We propose a novel approach to decouple the
periodical reactive power. Since in the dc–dc stage the super-
capacitor serves as an energy buffer, the need for power decou-
pling at the dc link can be eliminated as long as the control loop
has sufficient bandwidth. As a result, the dc-link capacitor is
only used to filter out the high-frequency switching ripple of the
dc–dc stage. Such an operation will reduce the energy-storage
requirement of the dc-link capacitor significantly. Therefore, a
small nonelectrolytic-type capacitor may be used.
B. Voltage Regulation of the Inverter
During a grid outage, the system operates in stand-alone
mode to supply uninterrupted power. The inverter is voltage
controlled. Since the grid voltage is absent, the controller is
dedicated to the regulation of the output voltage. Many control
strategies have been explored in the literature. The most com-
monly reported scheme is the two-loop control strategy where
the inner current feedback loop compensates for input supply
disturbances and the outer voltage loop generates the reference
for the inner current control loop. The feedback signal for the
inner current loop can be either the filter capacitor current
or the filter inductor current. Furthermore, various disturbance
feedforward schemes for decoupling can also be incorporated to
improve steady-state tracking performance. Capacitor current
feedback is preferred because of its inherent ability to forecast
the change of the output voltage. The capacitor current changes
instantaneously with the load-current change and, therefore,
provides a rapid control action to correct the output voltage [7].
The combination of a proportional-resonant (PR) controller
with the capacitor current feedback is shown to be superior
in achieving perfect reference tracking at the fundamental fre-
quency [7]. The transfer function of the PR controller HV (s)
can be written as [17]
2KI ωc s
HV (s) = KP +
s2 + 2ωc s + ω12
where KP = 1 and KI = 160 are the proportional and integral
gains, respectively, and ω1 = 314 rad/s and ωc = 10 rad/s are
the fundamental frequency and integrator low-frequency cutoff,
respectively. The PR controller is mathematically equivalent to
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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRIAL ELECTRONICS, VOL. 55, NO. 8, AUGUST 2008
Fig. 4. System power flow in the grid-connected mode of operation.
a synchronous frame PI controller. It resonates at ω1 and, thus,
has a very high gain around ω1 .
A PR controller has obvious advantages over a PI one. A PI
controller introduces an infinite gain at dc. Therefore, the dc
offset in the sampling and ADC circuit and/or the numerical
error caused by the limited word size of the DSP will be
accumulated over time and eventually leads to saturation of
the PI output. To solve this problem, the ideal integrator can
be approximated by a low-pass filter (LPF) with a limited
gain. Alternatively, a high-pass filter with a suitably low cutoff
frequency can be employed to filter out the dc components.
With the PR controller, the system open-loop gain at dc is low,
whereas the gain at the resonant frequency can be very high.
Obviously, the effect of offset and noise in the ADC sampling
and conversion circuit can be ignored.
Fig. 3 shows the two-loop control structure for the inverter in
the stand-alone operating mode. To provide overcurrent protec-
tion, instead of the capacitor current iC , the inductor current iL
and the load current iLD are measured as the feedback signals.
Since the capacitor current is the difference between the induc-
tor current and the load current, this method is equivalent to a
simple capacitor current feedback control. The PR compensator
in the outer voltage regulation loop minimizes the steady-state
error. The inner current loop is implemented with proportional
control. In addition, an output-voltage disturbance feedforward
term is added to the output of the current controller to improve
the system dynamics.
IV. C ONTROL IN G RID -C ONNECTED M ODE OF O PERATION
A. System Power Flow
(1)
The power flow in grid-connected mode of operation is
shown in Fig. 4. The supercapacitor acts as a buffer for the re-
active power that results from the reactive and harmonic current
of local loads. Since the grid is a virtually unlimited buffer for
real power, it is not necessary for the supercapacitor to balance
the power difference between the fuel cell and the load. Any
TAO et al.: LINE-INTERACTIVE UPS USING A FUEL CELL AS THE PRIMARY SOURCE
Fig. 5. Control scheme for the grid-connected mode of operation.
variation in the load real-power demand can be supplied by the
grid, whereas the fuel cell is operated at a constant power. The
grid can either source or sink power to the POC, depending on
the power supplied by the fuel cell and the load demand. In this
operation mode, the pulsewidth-modulation (PWM) inverter
is controlled in current mode to inject current into the POC.
We propose that the fuel-cell system not only injects real power
but also compensates for the reactive and harmonic current
consumed by the local loads.
B. Control Scheme
Fig. 5 shows the proposed control scheme, including an
active current estimator, a current controller, and a PLL for gen-
erating an in-phase sinusoid. Without compensation, the line
current iG is distorted by the reactive current and harmonics.
To shape iG as an in-phase sinusoid, a common way is to
subtract the active current component iP (t) = IˆP sin(ω1 t) from
the measured load current iLD (t), where IˆP is the peak value of
the in-phase current, and sin(ω1 t) is the in-phase sinusoid. The
current to be compensated iF (t) is
iF (t) = iLD (t) − IˆP sin(ω1 t).
Simultaneously, the inverter injects energy into the POC,
which is proportional to the power delivered by the fuel cell. To
do this, an in-phase current reference i∗PFC (t) is superimposed
on iF (t). As suggested in Fig. 5, the reference i∗PFC (t) is
∗
determined in accordance with the desired fuel-cell power PFC
and the grid voltage vG as
∗
2PFC
i∗PFC (t) = IˆPFC
∗
sin(ω1 t) = sin(ω1 t)
V̂G
where V̂G is the peak value of the fundamental component of
vG . In combination with the feedforward given by (3), a low-
bandwidth PI-type controller can be used to correct estimation
errors and give the active current command according to the
power supplied by the fuel cell.
In some cases, an injection of reactive power into the grid
may be desirable in order to improve the overall power factor. A
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3015
third current command term can be superimposed on the current
reference of the inverter
2Q∗
i∗Q (t) = IˆQ
∗
cos(ω1 t) = cos(ω1 t) (4)
V̂G
where Q∗ is the wanted reactive power injected into the grid
(a positive sign for capacitive power and a negative sign for
inductive power). This is, in fact, an open-loop feedforward.
For a three-phase system, the decoupled active and reactive
current control can achieve independent active and reactive
power regulation by means of PI regulation in the synchronous
rotating reference frame.
On the basis of (2)–(4), the inverter current reference i∗O (t)
is given by
i∗O (t) = iF (t) + i∗PFC (t) + i∗Q (t)

∗ 
2PFC 2Q∗
= iLD (t) + − IˆP sin(ω1 t) + cos(ω1 t).
V̂G V̂G
(5)
The VSI can be controlled as a current source to follow the
current reference. In the actual implementation, iL instead of
(2) iO is the feedback signal since iC is very small. In view of (4),
it can also be compensated for by an injection of a capacitive
current to the POC. In both operating modes, the measured
current feedback signals are iL and iLD .
The active current estimator shown in Fig. 5 employs a
feedback loop and an integral-gain block to accurately calculate
the in-phase current ip (t) [20]. This method is frequency inde-
pendent and does not need precise components. The principle
of operation is quite simple. Because of the integrator present
in the signal loop, the output iF (t) will not contain any in-phase
(3)
component in steady state since it has been subtracted. The
in-phase component of the load current iLD (t) is completely
removed by the integrating action of the feedback loop in the
current estimator. After multiplication with the in-phase sinu-
soid, no dc component will be present. This method requires a
low-distortion sinusoid with good phase tracking with respect
to the grid voltage. For this purpose, a high-performance PLL
generates a line voltage in-phase sinusoid with zero phase error
in steady state.
3016
Fig. 6. Proposed PLL structure with transport delay and orthogonal filter for
a single-phase inverter.
Note that active filtering may not be necessary for single-
phase applications. The proposed scheme is meant to show
that reactive and harmonic compensation can be realized by
the system at almost no additional cost. For a larger scale
three-phase implementation, the added functionality of active
filtering will definitely make sense.
C. High-Performance PLL Design
In the grid-connected mode of operation, a fast and accurate
PLL method is essential because the current reference is based
on it. As a result, the performance of the whole system is
dependent on the effectiveness of the PLL strategy.
In a three-phase system, the grid frequency, phase angle,
and amplitude can be easily obtained from the voltage space
vector. However, for a single-phase system, because of the lack
of a quadrature signal, acquiring the phase-angle information
is more difficult. The commonly used zero-crossing detection
method does not provide instantaneous phase-angle informa-
tion of the grid and is sensitive to multiple zero crossings caused
by noise. Therefore, the main issue of designing a single-
phase PLL is how to generate the virtual quadrature signal and
mimic a balanced three-phase system. Among many proposed
methods, the transport-delay method, as suggested in Fig. 6, is
believed to be the simplest and most effective one [21]. The
input grid voltage is stored in memory, and the quadrature
component is obtained by accessing the data history with a
delay of 1/4 grid cycle (T1 /4). With this estimated quadrature
signal, the single-phase system can be treated as a balanced
three-phase system, and most PLL control strategies for three-
phase systems can be applied. The proposed PLL structure for
the single-phase situation is shown in Fig. 6, where vG is the
sampled grid voltage, and ωff = 314 rad/s is the feedforward
term (for a 50-Hz grid frequency).
Note that a so-called orthogonal filter [16] is included in
the PLL structure (see also Fig. 7). The performance of the
synchronous reference frame PLL will be degraded when the
grid voltage is distorted, particularly when the voltage is un-
balanced. To improve the robustness of the PLL, an orthogonal
filter can be used.
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Fig. 7. Implementation of the orthogonal filter in Fig. 6, where ωp = 20 rad/s
and ω1 = 314 rad/s.
Let us design a unity gain LPF for the synchronous reference
frame (rotating at ω1 )
ωp
GeLP (s) = (6)
s + ωp
where ωp is the pole frequency of the LPF, and the superscript
“e” denotes that the transfer function is expressed in the syn-
chronous frame. The stationary equivalent of the LPF can be
expressed as
ωp
GsLP (s) = (7)
(s + ωp ) − jω1
where the superscript “s” indicates that the transfer function is
expressed in the stationary frame. The aforementioned transfer
function is obtained by substituting the integrator’s s with (s −
jω1 ). The physical meaning of this transformation is that the
frequencies of quantities in the synchronous reference frame
are shifted by ω1 when transferred to the stationary frame [16].
Note that both the input and output are complex variables, and
thus, the transfer function is a vector function. Rationalizing the
denominator of (7) yields
ωp ((s + ωp ) + jω1 )
GsLP (s) = . (8)
(s + ωp )2 + ω12
From (8), it is obvious that an LPF in the synchronous ref-
erence frame is equivalent to a bandpass filter in the stationary
frame ωp corresponding to the half width of the passband. The
filter cleans the orthogonal voltage signals before they are fed
into the PLL block. Therefore, the operation of the PLL is less
sensitive to the disturbances in the grid voltage. Moreover, with
the two orthogonal signals, the implementation of the filter is
simple. Fig. 7 is a representation of (7) [22]. As shown, only
a few calculations need to be performed. The transport-delay
method and the orthogonal filter realize a high-performance
PLL for a single-phase system.
D. Current Regulation of the Inverter
Conventionally, PI-type ramp comparison controllers have
been used to regulate the inverter-output current, although they
have drawbacks such as steady-state error (both magnitude
and phase) and limited disturbance rejection capability. These
controllers are usually designed as an analog circuit. With a
digital implementation, the sample delay in the feedback loop
TAO et al.: LINE-INTERACTIVE UPS USING A FUEL CELL AS THE PRIMARY SOURCE
Fig. 8. Resonant current controller with selective harmonic compensation
where KFI = 0.0469.
reduces the phase margin significantly and, thus, can cause
stability problems.
Again, as in the stand-alone mode of operation, a PR con-
troller similar to (1) can be used to regulate the inverter current
in the grid-connected mode of operation
2KI1 ωb1 s
H1 (s) = KP1 + 2
s + 2ωb1 s + ω12
where KP1 = 1, KI1 = 20, and ωb1 = 10 rad/s. The controller
has a good tracking performance for the fundamental signal.
It should be noted, however, that the tracking performance
decreases at harmonic multiples since a PR controller has its
largest gain at ω1 .
Concerning harmonics, DGs are subject to strict rules. The
IEEE 1547 standard allows a maximum of 5% for the cur-
rent THD. It is possible to implement selective harmonic
compensation with the PR controller [23]. Should harmonic
compensation be applied to satisfy the standard, then Fig. 8
shows the structure of the current controller, where GF (s) =
iO (s)/vinv (s). For each harmonic, the transfer function of the
compensator has the form
2KIh ωbh s
Hh (s) =
s2 + 2ωbh s + (hω1 )2
where h = 3, 5, 7, . . ., according to the selected harmonics to
be compensated. To be implementable, the compensators have
a passband with certain width (2ωbh ). Designers can choose
which harmonics have to be compensated according to the
situation at hand. The parameters used for the experiment are
KIh = 20, ωbh = 5 rad/s, and KPWM = 400.
E. Energy Management
An energy-management algorithm can be developed, adapt-
ing to the grid load profile and electricity pricing scheme set
by distribution companies. Residential customers avoid high
electricity rates at peak time, and the power grid benefits from
the load control. For instance, the fuel cell could generate its
maximum power during the peak load hours. Operating at the
maximum power point is preferred in order to achieve the max-
imum utilization of the fuel. During the off-peak hours when
the rates are low, the fuel cell operates at minimum power. In
the grid-connected mode of operation, users have the freedom
to choose a reference power for the fuel cell. Therefore, a user-
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3017
specified preset fuel-cell power profile according to the pricing
scheme can be used as an input to the system.
If the fuel-cell system is only used for emergency power, the
∗
fuel-cell power PFC can be set to zero when the utility power
is present. The control scheme maintains the supercapacitor
fully charged while compensating for the harmonic and reactive
current. When a blackout occurs, the energy stored in the super-
capacitor will first be used to power the load while the fuel cell
is slowly shifting from the standby mode to the service mode.
Note that a state-of-charge manager has to be incorpo-
rated in the control scheme to keep the voltage of the super-
capacitor in the allowed range. In the stand-alone mode,
charging/discharging the supercapacitor is managed by slightly
∗
adjusting the fuel-cell power PFC , whereas in the grid-
connected mode, this is done by making a small change to the
∗
active current IˆPFC [24].
V. T RANSITION B ETWEEN THE T WO O PERATION M ODES
(9) A. Seamless Transition Between the Two Modes
A seamless transition between the two operation modes
should be guaranteed in order not to disturb the operation of
critical and sensitive loads in the event of a grid fault. Most
of the time, the system operates in grid-connected mode. On
the occurrence of a fault, the equipment disconnects the fuel-
cell system as a protective measure. The procedure to shift
from grid-connected to stand-alone mode of operation can be
described as follows [25]. First, the control circuit detects a
fault on the grid. Then, the control circuit disconnects the
separation device, STS in Fig. 1, by shutting off the gate signal
to the STS, and starts to monitor the magnitude and phase
of the load voltage. When the grid current has its first zero
crossing, the inverter is switched to voltage-mode operation
with the load voltage as the reference. Finally, by ramping up
the magnitude of the load voltage to the normal rated value, the
(10) transition procedure finishes. The whole process may take a few
consecutive grid cycles to ensure a smooth transient.
On the other hand, when the fault on the grid is cleared, a
synchronization process should shift the inverter from stand-
alone to grid-connected mode of operation [25]. First, the grid
voltage is inspected and verified to be within the tolerance limits
of the sensitive loads. Once a nominal grid voltage is detected,
the control algorithm adjusts the load voltage to match the
magnitude and phase of the grid voltage. When the voltages at
both sides of the separation switch are locked both in magnitude
and phase angle, the STS can be turned on. At the instant of
reconnection, the inverter is turned to current control mode.
B. Grid-Status Detection
To ensure a high-quality power supply for local loads, the
utility grid status should be monitored continuously in real
time. The grid status includes sensing outage, overvoltage, and
undervoltage. Outage detection is carried out in every sampling
cycle by comparing the instantaneous grid voltage with a preset
threshold value. To avoid complications in the zero-crossing
region, the detection is disabled there. Multiple-time sampling
3018 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRIAL ELECTRONICS, VOL. 55, NO. 8, AUGUST 2008

Fig. 9. Simulated results of the power flow in the dc–dc stage with an inverter load. (a) Sufficient bandwidth for the PFC control. (b) Insufficient bandwidth for
the PFC control.

Fig. 10. Experimental results of the power flow in the system with an inverter load. (a) Sufficient bandwidth for the PFC control. (b) Insufficient bandwidth for
the PFC control. In both figures: IFC (10 A/div), IDC (0.2 A/div), and ISC (2.5 A/div), at a time base of 5 ms/div.

is used to avoid false outage detection caused by noise in

the signal. The overvoltage and undervoltage detections are
performed by calculating the rms value of the grid voltage
over a single grid cycle. This value is compared with a preset
value. When an abnormal rms value is seen, the DSP initiates a
counter. If the overvoltage or undervoltage persists for a period
of, for instance, ten grid cycles, the grid status is identified to
be abnormal, and the gating signal of the STS is shut off imme-
diately. The STS disconnects the system from the grid within
half a grid cycle. In order to avoid frequent transitions between
the two operation modes, grid-voltage sags or swells shall not
be considered as a grid fault if the load can ride them through.

VI. S IMULATION AND E XPERIMENTAL R ESULTS

An experimental system rated at 3.5-kW maximum power
was built. The control scheme was implemented with the Fig. 11. PLL simulation results, showing (a) response to a 45◦ step change in
TMS320F2808 DSP from Texas Instruments. Enabled by the phase and (b) performance under distorted input.

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TAO et al.: LINE-INTERACTIVE UPS USING A FUEL CELL AS THE PRIMARY SOURCE 3019

Fig. 12. PLL experimental results, showing (a) locking the phase to the grid voltage when the grid is reenergized and (b) operation of the PLL with distorted
grid voltage.

high-resolution phase shift of the DSP, which eliminates limit

cycle oscillations [24], the dc–dc stage was operated at 100-kHz
switching frequency. The grid-side inverter was switched at
20 kHz. A ReliON polymer-electrolyte-membrane (PEM) fuel
cell (supplied with standard industrial grade hydrogen gas) was
used as the generator, and a 145-F 42-V supercapacitor from
Maxwell was used as the storage.
The digital implementation of the system has been presented
in [24]. It is shown that with proper design, it is possible to use
a single fixed-point DSP to control and coordinate the dc–dc
and dc–ac stages. The PR controllers were discretized by using
the Bilinear (Tustin) Method.

A. Power Decoupling
To verify the effectiveness of the proposed system, the dc–dc
stage and the control scheme were simulated with PSIM7.0.
The three-port TAB converter was simulated with an inverter
as its load. The ac load of the inverter was a resistor in series
with an inductor. Fig. 9 shows the simulation results. In (a), it
can be seen that the fuel-cell power PFC is kept approximately
constant at 1 kW, whereas the fluctuations in the delivered
power PDC are buffered by the supercapacitor. However, this
is on the condition that the fuel-cell power control loop has
sufficient bandwidth. Otherwise, there will be a low-frequency
ripple in PFC , as shown in Fig. 9(b). Although the bandwidth
of the fuel-cell power control loop is deliberately tuned low
to avoid interaction with the control loop that regulates the dc
output voltage VDL [19], it is normally sufficient to remove the
double-line-frequency ripple.
The experimental results of the power flow in the system at
different bandwidths of the fuel-cell power PFC control loop are
shown in Fig. 10, where iFC , iDC , and iSC (as shown in Fig. 1)
are the averages of the fuel-cell current, the current drawn by
the inverter, and the supercapacitor current, respectively. They
are representative for power since the voltages at all the ports
remain unchanged. As shown, the periodical reactive current in
iDC is compensated for by the supercapacitor.
In summary, the presence of the supercapacitor storage in
the system leads to many benefits. The supercapacitor not only
compensates for the transients in the load but also for the
periodical reactive power resulting from the inverter. This ad-
Fig. 13. Simulation results of inverter operation in grid-connected mode with
a diode-rectifier load.
vantage eliminates otherwise needed energy buffers in the rest
of the system as long as a sufficient bandwidth is guaranteed.
B. Operation of the PLL
The PLL control strategy was investigated with Matlab/
Simulink for various situations.
Fig. 11(a) shows the simulated response to a 45◦ phase jump
initiated at 0.5 s. Fig. 11(b) shows the operation of the PLL
with distorted grid voltage, showing that the output of the PLL
is locked to the fundamental component of the input signal.
The experimental results are shown in Fig. 12. As shown in
Fig. 12(a), having detected the normal grid status, the inverter
starts the procedure to lock the output to the grid when the grid
is reenergized. Furthermore, Fig. 12(b) shows the measured
results of the PLL operation when the grid voltage vG contains
harmonics. The grid voltage was produced by a 15-kVA grid
emulator from SpitzenBerger + Spies.
C. Inverter Operation
Simulation results for the grid-connected mode of operation
are shown in Fig. 13, showing that the inverter supplies the
reactive and harmonic current demand of the local load (a diode

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3020
Fig. 14. Experimental results of inverter operation in grid-connected mode,
showing the compensation of the harmonics of the local load (a diode rectifier)
and the injection of active current to the grid.
Fig. 15. Experimental results of output voltage and inductor current in the
stand-alone mode of operation with a diode-rectifier load.
rectifier) while it injects real power into the grid. The grid
current iG is almost in-phase and nearly sinusoidal.
The experimental results are shown in Fig. 14. A diode
rectifier was used as the local load. The inverter compensates
for the reactive and harmonic current and injects active current
into the grid. Good correlation is found between the simu-
lation and measurement results. With the same load, Fig. 15
shows the measured results of the regulation of the output
voltage vO in the stand-alone operating mode. The distortion of
vO is low.
VII. C ONCLUSION
A line-interactive fuel-cell UPS system has been proposed
in this paper. The power conditioning unit is composed of a
three-port converter and a grid-interfacing inverter. The sys-
tem can operate in both the stand-alone and grid-connected
modes. In the grid-connected mode, the system injects constant
power into the grid and, at the same time, compensates for the
reactive and harmonic current demanded by local loads. The
function of operating as an APF is integrated into the system
and realized by the proposed control scheme. The benefits of
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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRIAL ELECTRONICS, VOL. 55, NO. 8, AUGUST 2008
using a supercapacitor have been shown. It compensates for the
instantaneous power fluctuations, overcomes the slow dynamics
of the fuel processor, and handles periodical low-frequency
ripple in power. Furthermore, a high-performance PLL for a
single-phase inverter is realized by means of a transport delay
for generating its virtual quadrature signal, and an orthogonal
filter enhances the PLL performance when the grid voltage is
distorted. To achieve zero steady-state error for both the voltage
and current regulations, and to implement selective harmonic
compensation, resonant controllers are used. Additionally, the
procedures for detecting the grid status and managing the
transition between the two operating modes were presented.
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Haimin Tao (S’05–M’08) was born in China in
1976. He received the B.S. degree in electrical en-
gineering and the M.S. degree in power electronics
from Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China, in 2000
and 2003, respectively, and the Ph.D. degree from
the Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e),
Eindhoven, The Netherlands, in 2008.
From 2003 to 2004, he was with Philips Lighting
Electronics, Shanghai, China. Between 2004 and
2008, he carried out his Ph.D. research project at the
TU/e. In January 2008, he joined Philips Lighting,
Eindhoven. His current interests include power electronic converters and digital
control.
Authorized
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3021
Jorge L. Duarte (M’02) received the M.Sc. degree
from the University of Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro,
Brazil, in 1980, and the Dr. Ing. degree from the
Institut National Polytechnique de Lorraine, Nancy,
France, in 1985.
From 1988 to 1989, he was a Research Engi-
neer with the Philips Lighting Central Development
Laboratory, The Netherlands. Since 1990, he has
been with the Electromechanics and Power Electron-
ics Group, Department of Electrical Engineering,
Eindhoven University of Technology, Eindhoven,
The Netherlands. Since 2000, he has also been doing consultant work with
Philips Power Solutions, Eindhoven. His research interests include modeling,
control, and design optimization of power electronic systems in low-voltage
applications.
Marcel A. M. Hendrix (M’98) received the
M.S. degree in electronic circuit design from
Eindhoven University of Technology, Eindhoven,
The Netherlands, in 1981.
Since 1983, he has been with Philips Lighting,
Eindhoven, where he started working with the Pre-
Development Laboratory, Business Group Lighting
Electronics and Gear and is currently a Senior Prin-
cipal Engineer. He has been involved in the design
and specification of switched power supplies for both
low- and high-pressure gas-discharge lamps. In July
1998, he was appointed as a Part-Time Professor in the Electromechanics and
Power Electronics Group, Department of Electrical Engineering, Eindhoven
University of Technology, where he teaches design-oriented courses in power
electronics below 2000 W. His professional research interests include cost-
function-based simulation and sampled data, nonlinear modeling, real-time
programming, and embedded control.