FUEL CELL POWER MANAGEMENT SYSTEM AND ANTI-ISLANDING METHOD IN THE POWER MANAGEMENT SYSTEM

• US 20090302691A1
• Filed: 01/27/2009
• Published: 12/10/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 06/09/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd.
• Original Assignee: Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd.
• Inventors: Wang, Yong, Oh, Dukjin, Choi, Seeyoung
• Granted Patent: US 7,982,342 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 307/129
• CPC Class Codes: H02J 3/38 Arrangements for parallely feeding a single network by two or more generators, converters or transformers
• CPC Class Codes: H02J 3/388 Islanding, i.e. disconnection of local power supply from the network
• CPC Class Codes: Y02E 60/50 Fuel cells
• CPC Class Codes: Y02P 90/40 Fuel cell technologies in production processes

Abstract

A fuel cell power management system and an anti-islanding method using the power management system. The power management system includes a fuel cell to generate direct current (DC) power, a power conditioning system (PCS) to generate alternating current (AC) power from the DC power generated by the fuel cell, a power grid that is connected to the PCS, a detector to detect a change in the AC power flowing from an output line of the PCS, and a controller to control the connection between the PCS and the power grid, according to the result of the detection.

Claims

1. A power management system comprising:

a fuel cell to generate direct current (DC) power;

a power conditioning system (PCS) to convert the DC power to alternating current (AC) power;

a power grid that is connected to the PCS;

a detector to detect a change in the AC power flowing from an output line of the PCS; and

a controller to control the connection of the PCS and the power grid, according to the change detected by the detector.

2. The power management system of claim 1, wherein the detector detects a change in the root-mean-square (RMS) voltage of the AC power flowing from the output line of the PCS.

3. The power management system of claim 1, wherein the detector detects a change in the frequency of the AC power flowing from the output line of the PCS.

4. The power management system of claim 1, further comprising an AC/DC converter to continuously convert some of the AC power of the PCS, to DC power.

5. The power management system of claim 4, wherein the controller disconnects the power grid from the AC/DC converter and connects the PCS to the AC/DC converter, when a constant DC voltage is output from the fuel cell, after the power management system is initiated.

6. An anti-islanding method comprising:

detecting a change in alternating current (AC) power flowing from an output line of a power conditioning system (PCS) that converts direct current (DC) power generated by a fuel cell into the AC power; and

controlling a connection between the PCS and a power grid, according to the detected change.

7. The anti-islanding method of claim 6, wherein the detecting of the change in the AC power is based on a change in the root-mean-square (RMS) voltage of the AC power of the output line of the PCS.

8. The anti-islanding method of claim 6, wherein the detecting of the change in the AC power is based on a change in the frequency of the AC power of the output line of the PCS.

9. The anti-islanding method of claim 6, further comprising using an AC/DC converter to convert a portion of the AC power of the PCS, into DC power.

10. The anti-islanding method of claim 9, wherein the controlling of the connection comprises disconnecting the power grid from the AC/DC converter and connecting the PCS to the AC/DC converter to each other, when a constant DC power is output from the fuel cell, after the fuel cell is initiated.

11. A computer readable recording medium having embodied thereon a computer program for executing an anti-islanding method comprising:

detecting a change in alternating current (AC) power flowing from an output line of a power conditioning system (PCS) that converts the AC power from direct current (DC) power that is generated by a fuel cell; and

controlling a connection between the PCS and a power grid, according to the detected change.