Shane Duryea, Syed Islam, and William Lawrance

t is estimated that about 80% of all photovoltaic (PV) modules are used in stand-alone applications [1]. Continuous power is obtained
from PV systems by using a storage buffer,
typically in the form of a lead acid battery.
Batteries used in PV applications have different
performance characteristics compared with batteries used in more traditional applications. In PV applications, lead acid batteries do not reach the cycle
of lead acid batteries used in other applications
such as uninterruptible power supplies or electric
vehicles. The shortened battery life contributes
significantly to the costs of a PV system. In some
PV systems the battery accounts for more than
40% of the life cycle costs [2]. An increase in the
lifetime of the battery will result in improved reliability of the system and a significant reduction in
operating costs [3]. The life of a lead acid battery
can be extended by avoiding critical operating conditions such as overcharge and deep discharge. Fig.
1 shows a typical stand-alone PV-diesel-battery
hybrid system.

Automotive batteries provide the high peak current

necessary for cranking internal combustion engines.
Standby batteries are typically used in uninterruptible power supplies where they are maintained at a high state of charge for many years, and
traction batteries provide the power for electric vehicles. Solar batteries typically experience frequent
deep cycles and irregular charging patterns.

Battery Cycling
Solar batteries provide energy storage in renewable
energy systems and are cycled, on a daily basis as
shown in Fig. 2. Fig 2 shows the energy cycling of a
battery in a stand-alone battery-PV system. Battery state of charge (SOC) is the cumulative sum of
the daily charge/discharge energy transfers. It can
be seen that the daily energy demand is approximately constant. When the weather is overcast, less
energy is supplied by the PV array. This causes the
battery SOC to reduce accordingly.
PV Array

Background
The most widely used battery in renewable energy
systems is the gel type, maintenance free, lead acid
battery. Other types of batteries are also available
such as nickel-cadmium and nickel-metal-hydride. Both of these batteries are considerably more
expensive and not as readily available.
Batteries are electrochemical energy storage devices and can be classified into several broad groups:
automotive, standby, traction, and solar batteries.

ac Bus

dc Bus

Diesel
Generator

=
Solar
Controller

Bidirectional
Inverter
ac Load

Battery Bank

Fig. 1. Typical hybrid system layout.

Shane Duryea is with Western Power Corporation, Jandakot, Western Australia. Syed Islam and William Lawrance
are with the Curtin University of Technology, Perth, Australia. This article appeared in its original form at the 1999
IEEE Industrial & Commercial Power Systems Conference.
1077-2618/01/$10.002001 IEEE

IEEE Industry Applications Magazine

May/June 2001

67

SOC
Excess Energy

100%
Overcast
Weather

Min

Month (30 days)

Fig. 2. Typical battery cycling pattern in a PV system.

t

Iin(t )

Iout(t )

SOC

Loss Current

Igas(t )

Fig. 3. Variables used in battery SOC measurement.

In this simple example, when the battery SOC

is low the system will still attempt to supply the
electrical load demand. This causes daily cycles
around the deep discharge threshold. A more intelligent management system would monitor the
SOC and gradually reduce the energy taken from
the battery (i.e., reduce the load) to help prevent
continuous operation at a low state of charge [4].
Presently, the operation of many stand-alone
PV systems is controlled by predetermined fixed
set points. This can lead to the system being subjected to extended periods of low SOC due to unfavorable climatic conditions. The minimum SOC or
deep discharge protection (DDP) is often implemented by measuring the battery voltage, which is
not a true measure of the SOC.
In the winter months the battery may experience
a low SOC for extended periods due to the seasonal
variation in solar irradiation. A low SOC for extended periods will cause increased sulphation,
which severely reduces the life of the battery. Increasing the battery capacity cannot provide sufficient storage capacity for the worst season of lowest
solar irradiation [5] because the battery self-discharge starts to play an important role in long-term
energy storage. One of the objectives of the proposed
battery management system is to measure the SOC
and use it to minimize extended periods of low SOC.

Battery State of Charge

Accurately determining the SOC of a battery over
time is crucial for the implementation of intelligent
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IEEE Industry Applications Magazine

May/June 2001

battery management strategies. There are several

methods to determine the SOC, including: measurement of the specific gravity, terminal voltage,
and methods based on ampere-hour (Ah) balancing.
For dynamic systems, the most common
method to determine the battery SOC is Ah balancing since specific gravity and terminal voltage
measurements require stabilization periods. Ah
balancing measures the current flowing in and out
of the battery to determine the net Ah remaining in
the battery. Ah balancing is often used to measure
battery discharge over shorter time periods such as
in electric vehicle applications.
For longer time periods and operation where
incomplete charging is concerned, Ah balancing
can result in high errors due to the accumulation
of errors [6]. The losses in a battery vary with SOC
and depend upon the specific operating conditions such as battery temperature and voltage. For
this reason Ah balancing alone or Ah balancing
with constant loss terms give poor results in PV
applications [2].

Ah Balancing with Variable Losses

An improvement in accuracy can be achieved if
battery SOC measurement is based on Ah balancing that includes a variable loss term I gas . The
model used was developed at the German Fraunhofer Institute and gives reliable results for lead
acid batteries [2], [7]. Gassing has been identified
as the main loss factor in a lead acid battery and the
algorithm uses a voltage- and temperature-dependent loss current I gas [2].
A block diagram of the SOC calculation is
shown in Fig. 3, where I in and I out represent the
current flowing in and out of the battery and I gas
represents the battery losses.
Equation (1) is used to calculate the SOC
SOC t + 1 = SOC t +

(I
t

bat

(t ) I gas ) t (1)
C 10

where:
SOCt is the SOC at a defined starting point;
SOCt+1 is the SOC after the first calculation;
I bat is the battery current; and
t is the time interval between calculations.
The sign of I bat (t ) in (1) is positive or negative
depending on whether net current is flowing in or
out of the battery. Parameters for the Sonnenschein
SB 12/60 Dryfit battery are shown in Table I.
The loss factor I gas is defined as

I gas =

Vbat

2 .23 V + C t ( Tbat 20 C )
C v
C 10

I go e cell
100Ah

(2)

Table I. Battery Parameters

Parameter

Prototype BMS

Value

SW2

SW1

-1

Cv

10.0 V

Ct

0.06 K

C 10

52.0 Ah

I go

0.036 Ah

100 Ah

100 Ah

Current

-1

Load

Voltage

PV

Temperature
Sensor

Battery

Fig. 5. A small stand-alone PV energy system.

LCD Display

Igas
[A]
1.6

Connection
Terminals

1.4
1.2

LM 355
Temperature
Sensor

1.0
0.8

2.5

0.6

2.4

0.4

2.3
2.2

0.2

48

36

42

24

30

12

18

0.0

2.1 Cell Voltage

2.0
[V]

Temperature
[Deg. C]

Fig. 4. Igas as a function of voltage and temperature.

where:
I go is the normalized gassing current in Ah;
C v is the voltage coefficient, C t is the temperature coefficient;
Vbat/cell is the battery voltage per cell;
Tbat is the battery temperature;
100 Ah is the nominal battery capacity; and
C 10 is the batterys capacity at the nominal 10h
discharge rate.
A graph of I gas as a function of the battery cell
voltage and temperature is shown in Fig. 4. I gas increases exponentially with increasing battery voltage and temperature.

Hardware Development
Fig. 5 shows the schematic of a small PV-battery-load system including the proposed battery
management system (BMS). A prototype BMS
hardware is developed as shown in Fig 6. The prototype includes temperature compensated charge regulation to avoid increased gassing at higher
temperatures (SW2) as well as deep discharge protection (SW1) [8]. The regulator uses low loss
MOSFET switches SW1 and SW2. The BMS calcu-

Fig. 6. Prototype battery management system (BMS).

lates the SOC to determine the available capacity of

the battery. This enables intelligent control schemes
to be implemented. The BMS also functions as a basic datalogger to record variables during testing via
the RS232 serial port and features a liquid crystal
display (LCD) to provide information for the user.
Fig. 6 shows the completed battery management
system mounted in an enclosure.
A BL1500 microcontroller from Z-World [9] is
used to control the BMS. The BL1500 was programmed in C. This avoids implementation dependent assembly language and reduces
development time.

Measuring Battery Variables

The three battery variables of interest are voltage,
temperature, and current. A simple voltage divider
and filter circuit was used to measure the battery
voltage, and a LM355 temperature sensor from
National Semiconductor was used to measure the
temperature.
A Hall effect sensor (HES) was used to measure the battery current (RS 650-548). The Hall
effect sensor produces an output that is proportional to the intensity of the magnetic field to
which it is exposed. The main advantage of using
a Hall effect sensor over resistive shunts is minimum power loss (I2R) and simplified instrumentation. Losses in PV systems should be avoided
wherever possible due to the high cost of PV
power per watt.
Fig. 7 shows the schematic of the test set up for
the battery measurement system.
IEEE Industry Applications Magazine

May/June 2001

69

BMS

I bat
V bat
Temp.

Prototype
Controller

RS232
IBM PC 2

SW2

SW1

I load

(HES)

Vbat

+
Temp.
Sensor

PV

PV

I PV

I bat

Battery
SB 12/60

Electronic Load
(HP 6060B 0-60A)

Shunt1 Shunt2

Test Results for Prototype System

Tests were performed on the completed BMS to determine the accuracy of the measured battery voltage, temperature, and current. The voltage
measurement error was less than 1% over a range
from 10 V to 16 V (assuming six cells) while the
temperature measurement error was less than 1
C from 0 C to 65 C.
An undesirable feature of the Hall effect sensor
was saturation at high currents. To avoid this
nonlinearity the maximum current should be limited. Over the complete range of 6A the maximum current error was approximately 2.5% and
for currents in the range of 4A the measured error
was less than 0.5%.

System Testing
RS232
Datalogger (Datataker 605)

Two system tests were conducted to verify the operation of the BMS using the set up shown in Fig 7. The
battery was charged from the PV source and discharged by the electronic load. The electronic load
provided a variable duty cycle over a 24-hour period.

IBM PC 1

Fig. 7. System test schematic.

Voltage

Temperature

Current
8
7
6

20

5
4

15

3
2

10

Current (A)

Temperature (Deg. C) Voltage (V)

25

1
0

1
2

0
2-Sep-98 3-Sep-98 4-Sep-98 5-Sep-98 6-Sep-98 7-Sep-98 8-Sep-98 9-Sep-98

Test Arrangement
Each system test lasted seven days and at the end of
the test period the results from the BMS and a
datalogger (Datataker 605) were compared. The
electronic load was controlled by the datalogger to
vary the current demand according to the load profile shown in Fig. 8.
In order to begin testing, the battery SOC needs
to be known as accurately as possible. A battery has
two states that are easily determined, fully
charged, and completely discharged.
Since empty (SOC=0%) is precisely the condition the BMS is intended to avoid, the battery was
fully charged according to the manufacturers specifications at the start of each test.

Date

Fig. 8. Load profile.

Datalogger

BMS

140%
120%

SOC (%)

100%
80%
`

60%
40%
20%
0%

2-Sep-98 3-Sep-98 4-Sep-98 5-Sep-98 6-Sep-98 7-Sep-98 8-Sep-98 9-Sep-98

Date

Fig. 9. Typical results for the battery voltage, temperature, and current.
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IEEE Industry Applications Magazine

May/June 2001

Test Results
The test results for the battery voltage, temperature, and current are shown in Fig. 9, where the
daily cycles are clearly visible. A set of typical SOC
test results are shown in Fig. 10 for both the
datalogger and the BMS.
The SOC starts at 100% and varies as the battery is charged and discharged. Both the
datalogger and the BMS are approximations to the
actual battery SOC. The accumulation of measurement errors causes the curves of Fig. 10 to drift
apart over the course of the test.
At the end of the test period a battery capacity test
was performed to determine the remaining Ah in the
battery. A summary of the end of test battery capacities for the test shown in Fig. 10 is shown in Table II.
From Table II, the datalogger appeared to provide reliable results while the BMS was overestimating the SOC.
The accuracy of the datalogger measurements
was determined to be comparable to that of the

The test data was used to investigate how measurement errors in the battery current, voltage, or temperature affects the SOC. The test data was taken as
reference and Microsoft Excel was used to recalculate the SOC for different types of errors.

Voltage and Temperature Errors

With all other readings unchanged, the SOC was
recalculated for voltage offsets of 0.5 V and 1 V
as well as temperature offsets. The results are summarized in Table III. The battery voltage and temperature only affect the losses, as expressed through
the equation for I gas , (2). A voltage increase results
in the loss factor increasing exponentially and correspondingly the SOC decreases. A voltage decrease results in the loss factor decreasing
exponentially and correspondingly the SOC increases. A 1 V offset represents a significant error
that would not normally occur in practice.
For the data used, large temperature measurement errors had little effect on the SOC since all the
temperatures for the test were in the range of 17-25
C, which results in very moderate gassing of the
battery due to temperature.

1.6
1.4

Current (A)

Sensitivity Analysis

2
1.8

1.2
1
0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
0
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24
Time (Hours)

Fig. 10. Test results for the SOC.

Reference

(-) 10mA

(-) 0.1A

(+) 0.1A

140%
120%
100%

SOC (%)

BMS. There was a net difference in the current

measurements of the two systems of approximately
50 mA, however.
In view of these results a sensitivity analysis was
performed to investigate the effect of measurement
errors on the battery SOC.

80%
60%
40%
20%
0%
2-Sep-98 3-Sep-98 4-Sep-98 5-Sep-98 6-Sep-98 7-Sep-98 8-Sep-98 9-Sep-98

Date

Current Measurement Errors

The effect of two different types of current measurement errors were investigated, fixed, and linear
offsets. Fixed offsets of 10 mA, 50 mA, and
100 mA were added to the current measurements
of the previous test and the SOC was recalculated as
shown in Fig. 11.
Table II. End of Test Capacity
SOC

Capacity

Actual

51%

BMS

70%

Datalogger

49%

Table III. Voltage Errors

Voltage Offset

SOC Error

+1.0 V

-17%

+0.5 V

-5%

-0.5 V

+2%

-1.0 V

+3%

Fig. 11. SOC with current measurement offsets.

Fig. 11 demonstrates the accumulation of error

over time. The relationship is linear, however, an
offset error approaching the quantization error of
the analog-to-digital converter (5 mA) would
cause a SOC error of 2.5%.
A fixed offset can represent large errors as during the course of the day the minimum current in
the test results was 250 mA and an offset of 100
mA represents an error of 40%. Instead of a fixed
offset, linear offsets of 1%, 5%, and 10% were
used to recalculate the SOC. The results for both
types of error are summarized in Table IV.
The good results for a simple linear offset can be
misleading as practical systems have combinations
of both types of errors. For the BMS prototype the
resolution of the current measurement is 10 mA,
therefore it is not surprising that the SOC varied by
more than 5% due to an offset. Also the Hall effect
current sensor was subject to temperature offsets.

Current Sensitivity Analysis

Unlike voltage and temperature, the battery current measurement is critical and requires the highest accuracy. Referring to Fig. 10, for a linear offset
of 1%, after one week the error was approxiIEEE Industry Applications Magazine

May/June 2001

71

Table IV. Current Measurement Errors

Error Type

Error

SOC Error after Test

Fixed Offset

10 mA

5%

50 mA

20%

100 mA

40%

1%

3%

5%

11%

10%

30%

Linear Offset

mately 5%, extrapolating to four weeks would

yield a SOC error of approximately 20%.
For a SOC accuracy of 5% after four weeks, the
required current measurement error would need to
be less than 0.2%. A measurement error of 0.2%
is difficult to achieve. In a practical application, additional methods would need to be implemented
to periodically recalibrate the SOC.
A 1% current measurement error is a realistic
value for practical systems where the measurements
system may be exposed to high temperatures. As the
sensitivity analysis demonstrated, however, small
measurement errors accumulate quickly. The SOC
is particularly sensitive to offset errors that integrate
over time; these should be avoided.

Recalibration of BMS
A feasible solution to accurately measure the
SOC for long periods is periodic recalibration.
Bopp et al. outlined a recalibration routine
where a recalibration (SOC=100%) would occur
if the following three conditions were all true:
1) The voltage is above 2.23 V/cell for several
hours;
2) The current is in the range of I go ; and
3) The battery current does not decrease further.
For stand-alone PV systems without a backup
(diesel) generator it could be several weeks or
months before recalibration is possible due to climatic conditions. The main difficulty then is to
shorten the periods between recalibration.
The BMS could control the battery SOC by controlling the minimum SOC or the load demand.
This would increase the annual average SOC and
allow more frequent recalibration. Alternatively
the BMS could force a recalibration if necessary by
disconnecting the load.

Conclusions
A complete integrated BMS prototype was developed that controls the charging and discharging of
a lead acid battery from a PV generator. The BMS
incorporates a series solar regulator and performs
temperature compensated charging. The BMS calculates the SOC to determine the available capacity

72

IEEE Industry Applications Magazine

May/June 2001

of the battery. This enables intelligent control

schemes to be implemented. The BMS also functioned as a basic datalogger to record variables during testing and featured an LCD to provide
information to the user.
System tests were conducted that verified the
operation of the BMS. The calculated SOC drifted
from the true SOC due to current measurement errors, however. Taking these errors into account the
BMS results were very close to the true SOC of the
battery for the test conducted.
A sensitivity analysis investigated the effect of
different types of error when calculating the SOC.
Small errors in the voltage and temperature measurements do not significantly affect the calculated
SOC. An accuracy of 1% for the voltage and 1
C for the temperature would give satisfactory results. The battery current measurement is critical
and requires the highest accuracy and offset errors
should be minimized.
Based on the sensitivity analysis for the battery
current, a 1% linear offset will cause a SOC error
of approximately 5% after one week and 20% after four weeks.
Modifications to the implemented SOC algorithm
are needed to enable accurate, long-term battery SOC
prediction. The BMS would be able to determine the
SOC more accurately and for longer periods if periodic
recalibration of the SOC was implemented.
The BMS would be valuable in a stand-alone PV
system where it enables the implementation of intelligent control strategies and has the potential to
increase the battery life and thereby reduce the
costs of stand-alone PV energy systems.

References
[1] P. Harnisch and J. Garche, The lead acid battery for solar
applications, Renewable Energy World, pp. 40-42, July
1998.
[2] G. Bopp, H. Gabler, D. Sauer, A. Jossen, W. Hohe, J.
Mittermeier, M. Bachler, P. Sprau, B. Willer, and M.
Wollny, A systematic effort to define evaluation and performance parameters and criteria for lead acid batteries in
PV systems, in 13th European Photovoltaic Solar Energy
Conf., Oct. 1995, Nice, France, pp. 1763-1769.
[3] T. Markvart, Solar Electricity. U.K.: Wiley, 1994.
[4] B. Wichert, PV-diesel hybrid energy systems for remote
area power generation-a review of current practice and future developments, Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, vol.1, no. 3, pp. 209-228, July 1997.
[5] G. Hille, W. Roth, H. Schmidt, and H.R. Wilson, Photovoltaic Syst., Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems,
Frieburg, Germany, 1995, pp. 109-141.
[6] P. Kremer, G. Bopp, State of charge display or lead-acid
batteriesIntention, methods, reality, in 13th European
Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conf., Oct. 1995, Nice, France.
[7] B. Maxeiner, Investigation of a battery model to calculate
the state of charge of lead acid batteries, Student Project,
Perth, Australia, Curtin University of Technology, 1997.
[8] Sonnenschein, Data sheet for the SB 12/60 Dryfit Solar Battery, Sonnenschein, 1994, Germany. (standard)
[9] Z-World, BL1500 User Manual, Z-World, USA, 1998.