Abstract
The increase in renewable energy sources in addition to the decrease in conventional synchronous generators is leading to significant challenges for the power system operators to maintain generation load balance and to manage the system's decreasing inertia. Proton Exchange Membrane (PEM) fuel cells are characterised by high current density and fast power injection, which makes them ideal for frequency containment. This paper presents a generic model for PEM fuel cells developed in PowerFactory for frequency stability studies and provides an evaluation of its performance in a reduced-size dynamic model of the North Netherlands high voltage transmission network. The results show that the PEM fuel cell provides improved frequency response within the containment period when compared with synchronous generators for the same amount of support reserve.