A novel scheme for detecting inhomogeneous internal currents in a fuel cell stack is presented. In this paper the scheme is investigated for the case that the flow field plates consist of graphite. Then plates of high conductivity, e.g. aluminium between the flow field plates together with small slits in these plates have three effects: (a) Whenever a local inhomogeneity of the electric current occurs at a particular cell in the stack, this will induce a surface current close to that cell perpendicular to the averaged current. This current can be detected. (b) The plates of high conductivity completely prevent the inhomogeneities from spreading to neighbouring cells. (c) Even at the particular cell the inhomogeneity is suppressed as far as possible. Thus this scheme leads to much better diagnostic possibilities and at the same time reduces electric instabilities to an extent, where they probably become harmless. This scheme will first be explained for a simple model to clarify the idea. However, very precise three dimensional computations using realistic parameters are presented, corroborating the results of the simple model. Copyright (C) 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.