Design and energy consumption research of an integrated air supply device for multi-stack fuel cell systems

• An integrated air supply device for MFCSs is designed can provide appropriate air flow for each stack. • The optimal stacks allocation for the MFCS is carried out with efficiency and remaining service life as comprehensive index under a specific high-power application scenario. • According to the electrical power consumption MAP and the maximum electrical power MAP determines the optimal characteristic range of the buffer. • With appropriate control strategy, the designed integrated air supply device can reduce energy consumption of MFCSs. The multi-stack fuel cell system (MFCS) could be widely used in high-power application scenarios because of its higher efficiency, stronger robustness and longer life. For a specific application scenario, an integrated air supply device is designed to meet the air demand of each fuel cell stack by maintaining the air pressure in the buffer. Under different buffer pressure control strategies (for example, constant pressure control and hybrid control), the maximum electrical power and electrical power consumption of the integrated air supply device for the MFCS are analyzed. The results show that compared with the single-stack scheme, the integrated air supply device can significantly reduce the maximum electric power and the electric power consumption. Using the 140 kW, 210 kW, and 280 kW MFCS as examples, with the increase of the power level of the fuel cell system, the benefits of the designed integrated air supply device become increasingly apparent.