Multilayer SOH Equalization Scheme for MMC Battery Energy Storage System

It is preferable for the retired batteries to balance their states-of-health (SOH) in the battery energy storage system (BESS) since it can prolong the system lifetime and reduce the maintenance burden. So far, the corresponding balancing techniques mainly focus on either the SOH balancing among packs or the SOH balancing of cells inside a pack. This article further proposes the multilayer SOH equalization scheme to equalize all cells’ SOHs of large-scale BESS by comprehensively combining the pack SOH balancing strategy and the commercial cell equalization techniques. It is noted that the balancing schemes for pack and cell cannot be simply superimposed since packs and cells have totally different connection modes and are equipped with different types of balancing circuits. In specific, the modular multilevel converter (MMC) is assumed to coordinate the pack and cell SOH equalization schemes, where the charging/discharging power per submodule is properly adjusted according to the extent of cell SOH deviation and the extent of pack SOH deviation together. MATLAB simulation and experimental results of a 10-kWh MMC-BESS prototype verified the performance of the proposed method.