A Layered Bidirectional Active Equalization Method for Retired Power Lithium-Ion Batteries for Energy Storage Applications

Abstract

The power from lithium-ion batteries can be retired from electric vehicles (EVs) and can be used for energy storage applications when the residual capacity is up to 70% of their initial capacity. The retired batteries have characteristics of serious inconsistency. In order to solve this problem, a layered bidirectional active equalization topology is proposed in this paper. Specifically, a bridge-type equalization topology based on an inductor is adopted in the bottom layer, and the distributed equalization topological structure based on the bidirectional BUCK-BOOST circuit is adopted in the top layer. State of charge (SOC) is used as the equalization target variable, and the bottom layer equalization algorithm based on a “partition” idea and route optimization is proposed. The static equalization experiments and charge equalization experiments are performed by the 12 retired batteries selected from an electric sanitation vehicle. The results show that the proposed equalization method can reduce the SOC difference between retired batteries and can effectively improve the inconsistency of the retired battery pack with a faster equalization speed.