A New Design for an Electrolyzer Power Converter Architecture Capable of Fault Ride Through

This paper presents a new power chain and its control scheme that provides highly flexible low voltage ride through (LVRT) capabilities for power converters that feed the stack of Polymer Electrolyte Membrane (PEM) hydrogen electrolyzers. It introduces an intermediate power stage with a new adaptive feedforward controller, that isolates the electrolyzer stack from grid-side disturbances. An RMS model of the whole solution is developed and validated. The system was developed in MATLAB/SIMULINK and PLECS environments. Furthermore, the system was tested in DC and AC grids by subjecting it to a fault reducing the input voltage magnitude down to 0.2 pu. The system demonstrated its ability to ride through the fault whilst maintaining the power set-points and supply quality at the electrolyzer stack connection point.