Cascaded battery energy storage system based on dual active bridges and a common DC bus

Along with the increasing system capacity, large-scaled energy storage systems are supposed to be connected into 10kV or higher networks. Urban network has strict criterions on power quality of the power electronic devices connected. Moreover, the occupancy and noise of industrial frequency transformers also become restraints to the promotion of urban network energy storage. For that reason, this paper proposes a battery energy storage system based on cascaded dc-ac converter, dual active bridges, and a common dc bus. High frequency transformers are used to replace the industrial frequency transformer for insulation, and battery groups are connected to the common dc bus with respective dc-dc interfaces. This multilevel converter system is easy to modularize, easy to extend, and allows different kinds of batteries to work together. The main circuit and proper control system are designed, with the soft-switching condition and current control issues of the dual active bridge analyzed in detail. The simulation results from EMTDC model verify the operation principles and corresponding control strategies.