Hybrid Lithium Iron Phosphate Battery and Lithium Titanate Battery Systems for Electric Buses

Electric buses face problems of short driving range, slow charging, and high cost. To improve the performance of electric buses, a novel hybrid battery system (HBS) configuration consisting of lithium iron phosphate (LFP) batteries and Li-ion batteries with a Li
₄
Ti
₅
O
₁₂
(LTO) material anode is proposed. The configuration and control of the HBS are first studied, and a LFP battery degradation model is built. Simulation result indicates that the HBS can help us to mitigate LFP battery degradation. Then, the HBS is optimally sized for electric buses to achieve minimum cost. The daily bus operation and charging patterns as well as LFP battery degradation are considered. The optimal HBS has 10.7% and 19.3% lower total cost than the single LTO-battery and LFP-battery configurations, and has higher range flexibility than the single LTO-battery configuration.