Patent ID: 6899968

Claim:
A fuel cell power supply device comprising: a Proton Exchange Membrane (PEM)-type fuel cell; reactive gas supply means for supplying reactive gases to said fuel cell; current limiting means for limiting an output current of said fuel cell; target output current determining means for determining a target output current of said fuel cell depending on a requested current of a load when said fuel cell is connected to said load through said current limiting means and supplies a current to said load; fuel cell control means for controlling an amount of reactive gases supplied from said reactive gas supply means to said fuel cell based on said target output current; upper limit recognizing means for detecting an operating state of said fuel cell and recognizing an upper limit of a current which can be outputted said fuel cell based on the detected operating state of the fuel cell; and water-discharge promoting means for comparing said target output current end amid upper limit with each other, and, if the operating state of the fuel cell suffers a malfunction and said upper limit becomes equal to or smaller than said target output current, performing a current limiting process of limiting the output current of said fuel cell to make said target output current equal to or smaller than said upper limit with said current limiting means, and performing a supplied-amount-of-reactive-gases increasing process of increasing the amount or reactive gases supplied from said reactive gas supply means to said fuel cell for thereby promoting discharging of water trapped in said fuel call.