CGFCC in the News

Fuel Cell Center Establishes Fuel Cell UPS Test Facility

With financial support from Connecticut Innovations' Yankee Ingenuity Technology program, the Connecticut Global Fuel Cell Center (CGFCC), a unit of the School of Engineering, has established an accelerated testing facility for fuel-cell based backup power systems. Fuel-cell backup power systems, or uninterrupted power supplies (UPS), offer a number of important advantages over battery backup systems, including higher energy density and power density, lower weight, lower maintenance, and potentially higher reliability-all at a lifecycle cost comparable to that of battery systems.

The CGFCC offers a number of excellent test features for evaluating the performance, efficiency, and reliability of multi-kilowatt (kW) fuel-cell power modules. These include:

1. A water-cooled load bank that can dissipate current up to 1500 amps at a maximum of 60 volts. The load bank has an add-on module to enable measurement of the cell/stack impedance spectrum, providing additional diagnostic information about cell/stack performance.
2. An automated system that simulates grid power loss and monitors the start-up reliability of the backup-power units.
3. A Thermotron environmental chamber (-60oC to 180oC) that can impose a variety of indoor and outdoor conditions to test the accelerated shelf decay of backuppower units, which are typically shut down or idle during the majority of their service life. Additionally, temperature transients can be simulated for accelerated-degradation studies.

Dr. Xinyu Huang, an assistant research professor of Mechanical Engineering, and Dr. Kenneth Reifsnider, former CGFCC Director, constructed the testing facility. Technical and financial contributions were made by center partner UTC Power Corporation (South Windsor, CT). A key feature is a comprehensive hydrogen-safety protocol with a suite of redundant sensors and actuators that ensures the safe handling of large quantities of hydrogen fuel when testing kW-class fuel-cell power plants. The facility also provides a valuable hands-on learning environment for undergraduate and graduate students. The first fuel-cell system being tested is a PureCell® Model 5 Power System (5-kW) from UTC Power. The CGFCC is now fully equipped to provide competitive third-party stack/system performance and reliability testing services. Dr. Huang invites original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) of fuel-cell based backup-power units, as well as fuel-cell power modules for forklift trucks, small vehicles, etc., to contact him (xinyu@engr.uconn.edu, 860-486-5284) for details of the CGFCC's test services and capabilities, student research opportunities and the like.