POWER CONDITIONING

Contents:

1. Introduction
2. Why we need power conditioning
3. Our choice of Inverter
4. Efficiencies
5. Conclusion

5. CONCLUSION

From the sizing/matching work, we obtained the following results for the fuel cell inverter:

The inverter rating assumes that we have implemented good demand side management and are not going to overload the system by subjecting it to large power spikes. It is probable that the system will have some sort of computer control to enable peak lopping and efficient load scheduling. The fact that the inverter rating is slightly higher than the fuel cell rating gives us a little bit of "leeway" in the event of small unexpected power surges. If we had bad demand side management, then the inverter would have to be rated at about 2 or 3 times the fuel cell rating. As well as the additional expense of purchasing such a highly rated inverter, there could be a serious drop-off in efficiency as outlined above. The inverter suitable for our needs is the XPK315 inverter, available from Exeltech.

For the PV-load inverter there is a much larger choice of products to choose from. Most of these products are standard models an can simply be connected and powered up if the correct specification is chosen. However since we have a very large PV array producing a large power output, the inverter must be highly rated (18 kW plus). Such inverters are available from specialist supplies, such as Dabbrook power systems.

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