Recent progress and challenges of multi-stack fuel cell systems: Fault detection and reconfiguration, energy management strategies, and applications

The fuel cell is a powerful and environmentally friendly power generation device that is widely used. However, conventional single-stack fuel cell systems (SFCS) may not be able to meet the rising demands for system applications due to their low durability and output power limitations. Multi-stack fuel cell systems (MFCS) can offer larger power, greater reliability, and better operating characteristics than single-stack fuel cell systems (SFCS), which has caught the focus of current research. To summarize the existing research findings, this paper reviews more than 200 literatures on the MFCS technical development, including fault detection methods, system reconfiguration under the degraded mode, energy management strategies (EMS), and specific applications. Detailed summary, classification, comparison and prospect of research are made to clarify the current development status and the future developing trends of MFCS.