Fuel Cells and Their Energy Management

A special issue of World Electric Vehicle Journal (ISSN 2032-6653).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 June 2020) | Viewed by 338

Special Issue Editor

LUSAC Laboratory, University of Caen Normandy, 14000 Caen, France
Interests: energy storage devices (lithium batteries, supercapacitors); fuel cell system; electric energy management; electric vehicles; smart grid

Special Issue Information

Dear colleagues,

Fuel cell (FC) technologies presently appear to be a promising solution to face energy transition challenges. From a sustainable development point of view, the improvement of energy generation from renewable sources, and particularly the use of hydrogen as an energy vector, currently appears as an efficient way to face the continuous increase of energy consumption. In the framework of the “zero emission” policies, hydrogen power generators convert gas chemical energy into electricity, resulting in a suitable, eco-friendly alternative to the common engine power units. In terms of market development, a growth of interest in customer demand can be observed in the last decade. In this scenario, both power-to-gas and gas-to-power strategies start to be coupled to renewable energies, such as in wind and tidal farms. Additionally, FC hybrid systems’ solutions can also be observed in other domains, such as in automotive and naval applications.

If the market is ready to absorb this technology, to achieve a large-scale market penetration, both research and companies are mainly focused on FC performance and durability enhancement. For these purposes, optimization of both FC and/or the hybrid system energy management is the major challenge.

Performance losses and degradation mechanisms can occur in FC components in cases of stressed operations. To face this problem, health-management techniques are introduced to develop suitable adaptive control strategies aimed at increasing system performance. Each component of the balance of plant (BoL) is then monitored and optimized, considering both the ancillaries’ power consumptions, their control logic, and the impact of their aging and/or malfunctioning with the FC stack operations (and vice versa). The common objective is to provide suitable references for a robust design and, at the same time, to optimize the energies’ flows in real time. The system architecture is then analyzed depending on the system level of hybridization. An optimal energy source supplied by an FC is typically combined with storage devices, such as batteries and supercapacitors. In this architecture, the energy is balanced via the DC bus voltage regulation. To regulate the DC bus voltage, supercapacitors are used to satisfy the high dynamics and high-power densities’ demands, while batteries are used as high-energy storage devices. Finally, the FC is used at lowest dynamics to generate power and balance the batteries’ state-of-charge. The Special Issue invites original papers on new or improved control design methods for energy management in FC system; onboard and remote applications for real-time power management; and system performance and lifespan enhancement.

Prof. Dr. Hamid Gualous
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. World Electric Vehicle Journal is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Published Papers

There is no accepted submissions to this special issue at this moment.
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