Consensus-Based Distributed Control of a Multilevel Battery Energy Storage System

Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS) based on modular multilevel cascaded topologies allow splitting the battery array into the converter sub-modules, improving efficiency and reliability of the solution. Modular converters can perform active balance of the battery packs and regulation of the output power through the use of multi-objective controllers commanding the power of each sub-module accordingly. However, despite the hardware modularity of multilevel BESS, the controller is usually based on centralized designs, which present issues in terms of computational load and scalability. This paper proposes a two-layer distributed control scheme, based on a high-level consensus algorithm to perform the State of Charge (SoC) balance and low-level individual multi-variable controllers to regulate the operation of the converter sub-modules. The controller was implemented in a cascaded topology, where each sub-module determines and regulates its output power considering the information of its neighbours. The proposed solution allows to fully exploit the modularity of the converter, distributing the control units in the power modules to improve the overall flexibility and scalability of the system. Simulations results validate the operation of the proposed system, showing how the converter sub-modules distribute its power outputs to equalize the SoC levels. Furthermore, the distribution of the multi-variable controllers reduces the computational burden, as each unit just regulates the operation of the respective sub-module.