The Problem

Electrical power generation involving Hydrogen fuel cells is increasingly becoming a viable method for producing electrical energy. LoganEnergy is one of the leading fuel cell manufacturers in the world. They needed a reliable way to monitor the operation of these fuel cells for maintaining, troubleshooting and performing research on the fuel cells.

The Solution

REAL Controls developed a web based monitoring system using National Instruments Fieldpoint hardware and LabVIEW software to acquire data from various sensors installed on the fuel cell. The fieldpoint modules also communicate with the fuel cell using a serial communication link. Each fieldpoint system is connected to the Internet using a common ethernet connection. The data is published to a web page and can be accessed by LoganEnergy or their customers using a web browser.

The Result

The system developed by REAL Controls allows LoganEnergy’s staff to connect to, and monitor, any of the company’s fuel cell installations at any time using a conventional web browser. This capability assists the company with troubleshooting problems with fuel cells that are located in remote locations and it allows them to monitor the performance of the fuel cells to gauge the performance and efficiency of the fuel cells.