Managing operation of a fuel cell system in a fuel cell vehicle

A control system configured to control a fuel cell system of a fuel cell vehicle, the control system comprising processing circuitry, and the fuel cell system comprising a fuel cell stack comprising an anode side and a cathode side, the processing circuitry being configured to:

• estimate an expected duration of a shutdown of the fuel cell system when the vehicle is shut down;
• in response to determining that a hydrogen protection time at the anode side is to be extended during the shutdown of the fuel cell system, determine a time until a next freeze preparation of the fuel cell system;
• in response to determining that the expected duration of the shutdown of the fuel cell system is shorter than the time until the freeze preparation, enable a hydrogen refill at the anode side to extend the hydrogen protection time;
• and
• in response to determining that the expected duration of the shutdown of the fuel cell system is longer than the time until the freeze preparation, and further in response to determining that power produced by the fuel cell system during a cathode oxygen depletion to be performed after the freeze preparation cannot be supplied to at least one power consumer, disabling the hydrogen refill, wherein the at least one power consumer comprises one or more of an energy storage system, ESS, of the vehicle, a grid, and a brake resistor or an auxiliary power consuming device of the vehicle.