Comparison of multi-stack fuel cell system architectures for residential power generation applications including electrical vehicle charging

Multistack fuel cell systems can be more efficient, more reliable and possess a longer lifetime than single fuel cell systems. However, these features depend on the architecture used to link the fuel cells. Some architectures enable the use of distribution methods which impact the behavior of the system. The aim of this paper is to evaluate the impact of multiple architectures and distribution methods for multi-stack fuel cell systems on the ageing and hydrogen consumption in the case of a residential application including the charge of an electric vehicle. The ageing of the system depends on the number of start/stop cycles and the duration of use. The cost of use of the fuel cell system depends on the hydrogen consumption, system cost and degradation. The results show that the parallel architecture is the less expensive and minimizes ageing if the ratio of the degradation per start/stop cycle to the degradation per hour of use is low. The series architecture is the most effective when that ratio is high.