(Picture source: Visual China)

This year marks the third year of the demonstration and development of hydrogen fuel cell technology in China. Fuel cell companies are busy expanding their market presence and increasing their financial reserves on one hand. On the other hand, in the face of environmental uncertainties and survival pressures, these companies are continuously honing their product fundamentals in response to market demands, focusing on technical optimization and iteration of reliability, stability, lifespan, and hydrogen consumption.

This means that the industry has a clearer answer to the core question of 'What makes a good fuel cell system?'

The fuel cell system of Northstar Technology (688565) is actively addressing this question through practical actions. Led by Dr. Hou Junbo, the technical team has optimized and iterated the system around core indicators such as stability, reliability, hydrogen consumption, failure rate, and lifespan, and has presented outstanding innovations in the areas of vehicle engine systems and hydrogen energy storage and power generation systems.

High stability and low hydrogen consumption have resulted in impressive performance of the fuel cell system for vehicle applications.

In the field of passenger vehicles, Northstar Technology has completed the development of a series of fuel cell engine systems with a power range from 30kW to 235kW. These can be widely used in passenger cars, urban buses, light, medium, and heavy-duty trucks, forklifts, trailers, and various construction machinery.

Liyuan technology vehicle fuel cell engine products (left 70 kW, right 235 kW)

Among them, 17 hydrogen fuel cell buses equipped with Liyuan technology HYPSR-04 model 70KW on-board systems recently handed in impressive operational data:

During the nearly one and a half years of continuous operation in Jiashan County, Jiaxing City, Zhejiang Province, these 17 buses have traveled a total distance of 0.8 million kilometers, with an average hydrogen consumption of 3.7kg per hundred kilometers, far lower than the industry average of 5kg per hundred kilometers, demonstrating significant advantages in assisting Jiashan City's public transportation energy-saving and environmentally friendly transformation.

Liyuan Technology Jiashan County buses

In addition to the purchase cost, the energy consumption per hundred kilometers is one of the most important economic indicators for vehicles. In order for fuel cell vehicles to achieve commercialization, in addition to continuously reducing costs at all stages, it is crucial to reduce the operating costs of vehicles and decrease hydrogen consumption to improve fuel economy. The operational data of Liyuan technology's low hydrogen consumption proves its profound technical expertise in fuel cell systems and vehicle power matching.

Furthermore, the low failure rate is another major highlight of these buses in actual operation. The 70KW hydrogen fuel cell system not only meets the daily operation needs of buses, but also provides stable and efficient power output under long-term and high-frequency use, without significant failures, verifying its adaptability under complex road conditions and varying climatic conditions.

"The total travel distance of 0.8 million kilometers, with an average consumption of only 3.7kg per hundred kilometers, is the best proof of the reliability and practicality of our hydrogen fuel cell technology under various operating conditions. It also demonstrates the enormous potential of hydrogen fuel cell technology. The application of hydrogen fuel cells has far-reaching implications for Jiashan City and the entire public transportation industry, and provides an important reference for more cities to adopt clean energy buses." Liyuan Technology stated.

In the early stages of development, new energy vehicles always encounter doubts about stability, reliability, and so on, and hydrogen fuel cell vehicles are no exception. Fuel cell enterprises are not only facing market performance tests with each batch of vehicles being deployed, but also facing the trust test of local governments, operators, and even the entire industry.

In order to produce products that reassure the market and ensure the stability and durability of fuel cell systems for vehicles, Lixyuan Technology has invested extraordinary efforts and outstanding intelligence in system architecture design, fault diagnosis mechanisms, and real-time monitoring of operational status. They ensure that every aspect is refined, using the power of technology to create a foundation of quality, making safety and reliability the distinct attributes of the product.

"We have built a fault diagnosis framework into the engine control system, which can quickly diagnose major fault types such as abnormal air pressure in the air route, excessive hydrogen compression difference, abnormal hydrogen pressure, low-pressure cooling liquid circuit, high cooling liquid temperature, and jammed drainage valves. We have also established protective response mechanisms for potential serious consequences of faults to prevent damage to the fuel cell stack as much as possible," said Dr. Hou Junbo.

In addition, each vehicle-mounted fuel cell system is integrated with a TBOX (see the figure below), which can handle long-term performance degradation and conduct real-time monitoring and early warning with corresponding fault correction strategies. The real-time data upload system based on TBOX can remotely monitor the operating status of the fuel cell engine system and implement remote fault diagnosis. The continuously expanding running data set can be used to analyze, learn, and extract fault information, constantly improving the data-driven intelligent diagnostic mechanism.

Lixyuan Technology TBOX Remote Terminal Monitoring System

Undoubtedly, with the highly stable, low hydrogen consumption, and tough and durable characteristics of the fuel cell system, this newcomer in the fuel cell industry has already opened the door to the trillion-yuan hydrogen vehicle market.

100kW-100MW, stationary power generation system brings "four pleasant surprises"

In addition to automotive applications, fixed power generation is also one of the application scenarios that Linyuan Technology continues to develop. GGII expects that by 2030, the cumulative installed capacity of fuel cell energy storage and power generation in China will reach 5GW, and the incremental market space for fuel cell power generation systems from 2023 to 2030 will exceed 24 billion yuan.

Around the four key performance characteristics of modularity, intelligence, stability and durability, Linyuan Technology's fixed power generation system has come to the forefront and is targeting the hydrogen energy storage market.

The rated power of the cabinet-type power generation module developed by Linyuan Technology is 100kW, and it outputs 380V AC power; the rated power of the container-type module is 1MW, and it outputs 10kV AC power.

Linyuan Technology's cabinet-type power generation module (left) and container-type power generation module (right).

The power generation module can operate independently or support multi-module parallel expansion. It can flexibly deploy distributed power generation capacity from 100kW to 100MW by combining voltage conversion equipment and energy storage units. It has the characteristics of standardized production, integrated transportation, and simple on-site construction.

Secondly, each power generation module product has independent and self-consistent control functions, which ensures the intelligence of the entire power generation system in order to reduce hydrogen consumption and attenuation.

The container-type module is equipped with four fuel cell systems, and the microgrid controller receives external commands and sends control signals to each fuel cell system and inverter. When multiple modules are operated in parallel, the operating data of each fuel cell system penetrates the module hierarchy, and it is connected to the comprehensive smart energy management system in real time to achieve cloud-based centralized dispatch and remote operation and maintenance.

The intelligent energy management system can optimize the output power of each fuel cell in real time at the stack level, improve the average efficiency of each stack, reduce the total hydrogen consumption of the system, and consider the constraint power fluctuation rate, delaying the performance decay of the stack. At the system level, the energy management system has the function of self-adaptive operation mode, which can automatically match the optimal power generation mode according to the power consumption characteristics to avoid frequent start-stop and frequently changing load conditions which cause large losses.

Thirdly, fixed power generation applications have extremely high requirements for the stability and durability of fuel cell products, and Laiyuan Technology has optimized them from materials, components to system level.

For example, by selecting key raw materials such as PEM, GDL, catalyst, and optimizing the structure of MEA, Laiyuan Technology's MEA research and development team has developed a four-layer frame structure MEA that provides the required long-lasting durability for fixed power stations; By optimizing the response strategies of the system under start-stop, load changing, high/low load conditions, etc., the loss of materials such as proton exchange membranes, catalysts, gas diffusion layers, etc. is avoided, and the life of the stack is prolonged...

Fourthly, at the system design and control level, Laiyuan Technology uses various methods to improve the reliability of the stack.

For the air supply system, a coordinated control method of the air compressor and back pressure valve has been developed, which can decouple the air flow rate from the intake pressure, make both of them respond to the system needs quickly and accurately, and maintain strong robustness even when there are large changes in operating conditions and environmental states, effectively avoiding damage to the stack due to insufficient air supply under variable load conditions.

For the hydrogen circulation system, a hydrogen injector proportional valve feedforward + adaptive closed-loop control method has been developed, which accurately matches the moments of the hydrogen exhaust valve opening and the proportional valve opening change, effectively suppresses the pressure fluctuation on both sides of the membrane electrode caused by the hydrogen exhaust valve opening, and greatly reduces the risk of membrane electrode puncture.

For the membrane water content, a state observer has been designed, which estimates the liquid water content on the anode and cathode sides of the stack based on the estimated hydrogen flow rate on the anode and the pressure difference at the inlet and outlet of the cathode, and controls the membrane water content in a reasonable range in real-time by adjusting the opening time of the hydrogen exhaust valve and the excess air ratio, effectively reducing the frequency of membrane dryness and flooding faults.

"Our fuel cell power generation system can truly achieve stability and reliability, and is suitable for fixed power stations of various scales," said Laiyuan Technology in conclusion.

It is understood that in the zero-carbon smart energy demonstration project in its company's factory area, the power station project using electrolytic water hydrogen production + fuel cell power generation technology is running steadily, with a conversion efficiency of 35% for electricity-hydrogen-electricity, demonstrating significant efficiency advantages in the industry.

From the perspective of the industry, hydrogen energy storage, as a representative of long-term energy storage technology, has been included in the official support for new energy storage categories. With the decrease in hydrogen production and storage costs, distributed power generation devices are expected to be promoted.

Although fuel cell power generation applications are still in the early stages of budding growth, facing many urgent obstacles and challenges to overcome, Power Source Technology has already emerged as an industry pioneer. With a forward-looking vision and firm pace, it delves deep into exploring application scenarios, overcoming technical difficulties one by one, paving a solid path for the development of fuel cell power generation applications.