  In power networks where multiple fuel cell stacks are employed to deliver the
required power, optimal sharing of the power demand between different stacks is
an important problem. This is because the total current collectively produced
by all the stacks is directly proportional to the fuel utilization, through
stoichiometry. As a result, one would like to produce the required power while
minimizing the total current produced. In this paper, an optimization
formulation is proposed for this power distribution control problem. An
algorithm that identifies the globally optimal solution for this problem is
developed. Through an analysis of the KKT conditions, the solution to the
optimization problem is decomposed into on-line and on-line computations. The
on-line computations reduce to simple equation solving. For an application with
a specific v-i function derived from data, we show that analytical solutions
exist for on-line computations. We also discuss the wider applicability of the
proposed approach for similar problems in other domains.
