RELIABILITY ANALYSIS OF SOLAR POWERED PEM FUEL CELL PLANT FOR RESIDENTIAL APPLICATION

Abstract

Considering the economic and technological attractiveness of fuel cell technologies over the existing fossil-fuel technologies we should consider the informed end user's point of view as regards the social acceptability of new and emerging technologies. For this reason information related to the aspects of reliability and process safety of the Polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell power plant (PEMFCPP) systems available today should be available to the stakeholders (technology producers/vendors, the end users, academia, regulators) in the emerging risk-management governance framework, whether it is formalized or not. Increasing customer awareness of reliability and its influence on lifetime costs and safety, together with increasing complexity of industrial plants and equipment has resulted in an escalating need for systematic methods of accounting for reliability in design and manufacturing. In this study the system considered is a model of a hypothetical stand alone energy system composed of a PV array integrated with a PEMFCPP system (electrolyser, hydrogen storage, PEM fuel cell). The system is designed to provide the whole electrical need of a small residential building in a remote area mostly isolated from the centralised grid system. A reliability analysis of the integrated system has been carried out using fault tree analysis and components causing most problems to the system are identified in order to prioritise improvements in the design and channel resources and efforts of system improvement to areas that will have most impact on system performance. Fault tree analysis is also done to determine the safety hazards of using hydrogen fuelled PEM fuel cell system.