Performance Analysis of Methanol Steam Reforming 5 kW HT-PEM Fuel Cell System

The energy crisis and environmental problems make the energy revolution urgent. Hydrogen energy, as green energy without pollution, has become a hot research topic. Hydrogen production by methanol steam reforming technology bypassed the current high cost of hydrogen transportation and storage, making it possible to use cheap hydrogen energy on mobile terminals. This paper analyzes the energy flow of BOP components, fuel cell performance, system efficiency, and economic feasibility of the methanol steam reforming 5 kW HT-PEM fuel cell system. Through energy flow analysis, the actual energy consumption and energy consumption distribution of each BOP component in the system can be understood, which is helpful for the subsequent improvement and upgrading of the control strategy and preheating mode of the system, and also has reference significance for the optimization of the selection of BOP components and the improvement of the overall system efficiency. The energy consumption of various types of heating rods in the system accounts for 90.8% of the total energy consumption during the preheating stage. In the power generation stage, the maximum fuel cell efficiency reaches 54.1% when the fuel cell output current is 20A, and the maximum system efficiency reaches 46.2% when the fuel cell output current is 33A. In terms of economic feasibility, the methanol steam reforming HT-PEM fuel cell as an automotive power system incurs fuel costs that are less than 30% of traditional fuel-powered vehicles.