Reliability of Plug Power GenSys™ fuel cell systems

摘要: Abstract The pace at which fuel cell systems are widely adopted by the marketplace will be determined primarily two factors: (1) rate system cost decreases and (2) reliability increases. This paper describes field its improvement through a combination of software hardware changes Plug Power's GenSys™ fleet 5 kWe (plus up to 9 kW thermal energy) proton exchange membrane (PEM) systems. Power has shipped more than 300 these 50 customer locations in 10 countries. is sufficient size, been operating for length time, develop statistically significant observations reliability. Nondimensionalized probability plots PEM stack lifetime units presented, series system-level described that have increased life about factor 4. Nondimensionalized, statistics also presented installed fleet. Pareto charts describing top causes failures shown, general methodologies improving discussed.