New Industry Products

EA Elektro-Automatik Offers Bidirectional DC Power Supplies and Regnerative DC Loads for Testing Fuel Cells

July 08, 2021 by Hailey Stewart

In response to demand for growing hydrogen fuel cell development and test, EA Elektro-Automatik, the global leader in DC power test equipment, offers a series of powerful bidirectional DC power supplies and regenerative DC loads ideal for fuel cell stack testing

Fuel cell performance requires adherence to a variety of specifications, so test engineers must conduct a series of characterization, performance and durability tests. Fuel cells are characterized by determining their resistance. Fuel cell performance is usually indicated via polarization curves by measuring its voltage and current. A durability test is a test after a fuel cell stack reaches operating conditions, the stack is subjected to a continuous series of charge/discharge cycles to ensure that it will work safely and reliably in the field.

Image courtesy of EA.

“In response to the demand for clean energy, the market for fuel cells is growing at a compound annual growth rate of 26.4% and is projected to reach $848 M by 2025. Uses for fuel cells include power generation for commercial vehicles such as buses and forklifts, backup power generation systems, and for military power sources. To ensure the design and manufacturing of quality fuel cells, EA Elektro-Automatik offers its EA-PSB 10000 2-quadrant power supplies and EA-ELR 10000 series electronic loads. Both the EA-PSB power supplies and the EA-ELR loads sink up to 30 kW and feed the energy back to the grid to enable testing of any size fuel cell stack,” said Markus Schyboll, CEO of EA Elektro-Automatik (EA).

Built-in Function Generator Simulates any Load Condition

Both the PSB power supplies and the ELR electronic loads have built-in function generators that include arbitrary waveform generation, which simplifies characterization, performance, and durability testing of fuel cells and the devices the fuel cells will power. Unlike other loads that need a separate AC instrument, the ELR load, with its built-in waveform generator, can perform the perturbation test to determine fuel cell resistance. In addition, both the PSB supplies and the ELR loads, with their built-in waveform generators, can subject the fuel cell-under-test to dynamic load variations for performance and durability testing. The PSB supply can add ripple and noise onto its output to determine how well a fuel-cell-powered device can perform under a wide range of conditions.

PSB Series DC Supplies Simulate Fuel Cell Characteristics

The PSB DC supply also has an internal X-Y generator that allows the supply to simulate the output of a fuel cell. At various voltages, the PSB supply can vary its output resistance to generate a current characteristic of the fuel cell at the programmed voltage. Thus, the PSB supply can emulate the three phases of a fuel cell’s characteristic output.