A New Topology of a Battery Energy Storage System
K.K. Leung and D. Sutanto
Department of Electrical Engineering,
Hong Kong Polytechnic University,
Hung Hom, Hong Kong.
ABSTRACT
This paper will describe a new topology of a
Battery Energy Storage System (BESS) that can
provide simultaneously fast control of both its
M W and MVAr outputs to improve power system
operation and control. The proposed BESS
topology also provides several other important
contributions to the power systems such as active
harmonic filtering to meet power quality
standards, load leveling, damping of inter-area
oscillations, damping of transient stability,
effective and fast control of power flow along a
transmission line corridor, many of the Flexible
AC Transmission System (FACTS) features, and
emergency supply on loss of AC source (very
similar to UPS applications). This paper shows
that BESS can offer an important resource for
improving power system control.
1. INTRODUCTION
The cost of providing a reliable and secure
electricity supply to all consumers is substantially
increased by the uncertainties imposed on power
systems. The major cause of uncertainty is posed by
the daily and annual peak demands and this is all
the more serious as power systems become
increasingly vulnerable to disturbances at periods of
peak demand. Specifically to withstand a range of
severe disturbances at the time of annual peak
demand, heavy expenditures are committed for
operations as well as equipment and controls for the
entire power system. Most of this expenditure could
be avoided, without reducing power system security,
by curtailing the demand at peak periods.
Even though AC energy cannot be stored, fast
responding inverters allow access to other forms of
energy storage. Battery Energy Storage Systems
(BESS), a mature technology can fulfill this function
and inverters provide the ideal interface between the
IEEE Catalogue No: 9SEXI37
0-7S03-4495-2/9S/$10.00 1998 IEEE 253
DC energy storage and the AC system. Capable of
one cycle responses, the inverters can produce both
active and reactive power, even though only drawing
active power from the energy storage and their much
faster responses are available without the
mechanical wear suf€ered by turbo-generators. Of
added importance, BESS can be located within
distribution network, close to city consumers and fill
the gap caused by the retirement of city power
stations. In fact it has been the retirement of city
power stations that has contributed to the growing
difficulties faced by power systems throughout the
world. City power stations had been largely able to
shield the transmission grid frorn the fast load
changes of city consumers during the daily peak
periods. The impact on the transmission system,
following their retirement, has affected the security
levels of the entire power system. The heavier and
more volatile loading have made it more susceptible
to disturbances, and when the transmission grid has
been disrupted, many thousands of consumers have
been interrupted for extensive periods, without any
back-up power. Not only will sufficient quantities of
BESS provide back-up power for essential city
services, but they could speed up restoration of the
power system, should the grid be disrupted.
BESS has many qualities that make it suitable for
dynamic control, such as [J]:
With IGBT (Insulated Gate Bipolar Transistor)
control, the output of BESS cam be varied in a
fraction bf a second
The output of both real and re,activepower can
be vaned extremely quickly in the four quadrant
operation,
With its stored energy, the nominal output could
be doubled for a short time
Its reactive power output could provide a rock
steady control of voltage level.
This reactive power control does not appreciably
tap its stored energy.
Several BESS units have been actually installed in
the existing power systems. The BESS at Bewag,
Germany, operated since January 1987, is the first
large commercial application of the battery storage
in a power system. The storage capacity of the
Bewag’s BESS is 17 MW/14 MWh. It helps to
provide peak load coverage, spinning reserve,
voltage regulation and load frequency control.
While Bewag’s BESS is intended for frequency
regulation, the 10 MW/40 MWh BESS built in 1988
at Southern California Edison Chino substation is
intended for load leveling. The Puerto Rico Electric
Power Authority (PFEPA) commenced commercial
operation of a 20 MW BESS in November 1994
primarily to assist with frequency control when
generators are lost. However, the potential of BESS
has not been fully explored and utilised, such as its
ability to provide active filtering, damping for inter-
area oscillation and transient stability, emergency
supply, active and reactive power compensation,
FACTS facility etc.
This paper will discuss the hardware configuration
and software technologies currently being used to
implement some of the above objectives, in
particular, the fast control of active and reactive
power demand and generation when a Battery
Energy Storage System is connected to the grid. The
proposed three-phase multi-purpose Battery Energy
Storage System will provide active and reactive
power independent of the supply voltage with
excellent power quality in terms of its waveform.
2. THE PROPOSED BATTERY ENERGY
STORAGE SYSTEM
Currently, a new topology of a BESS is being
implemented at the Hong Kong Polytechnic
University which is capable of interconnection to the
grid, provide active filtering, load leveling,
emergency supply, damping of inter-area oscillation
and FACTS facility. This is achieved by ensuring
that the current connected to a point of common
coupling is maintained constant both in magnitude
and sinusoidal waveshape irrespective of the varying
load demand which may contain distorted
waveform. By varying the magnitude of the supply
current, the BESS can be utilised as a load leveling
daice, e.g. by setting the magnitude to be low
during the day such that BESS provides parts of the
load demand and by setting the magnitude high at
night, such the extra energy is used to charge the
BESS. As the supply current waveform is
continuously controlled to follow a sinusoidal
254
waveform, active filtering is accomplish naturally
without the need of extra control strategy. Also,
since the waveform could be easily shifted right and
left, reactive power compensation can be easily
provided to make the supply current either lagging
or leading. This ability to control both active and
reactive power of the device is also suitable for
providing fast damping action against any
oscillation caused either by small signal dynamic
instability or due to transient instability. Further, by
being able to control the current both in magnitude
and in waveform, the BESS also acts like a FACTS
device which control the power flow along the
transmission corridor connected to the point of
common coupling. In this way, in one single device,
we have a powerfbl controller that can significantly
improve the control performance of the power
system.
The following section describes the hardware and
control system for the BESS implementation.
2.1 HARDWARE
The hardware consists of:
Real time accurate measurements of electrical
quantities built around a Texas Instrument
TMS320C3 1 3rd generation floating-point
Digital Signal Processor @SP). The board
combines the TMS320C3 1’s computing
perfonnance of up to 40 MFlops, with a
versatile set of on-board Input/Output (VO).
This subsystem provides more complex
functions like PWM, capture, timers and bit UO,
based on a TMS320P14 micro controller DSP.
Using a software based algorithm, this
subsystem can be accessed like conventional VO
channels, but also can be programmed as a slave
DSP. The DSP board has four ( A D )converters
to sample the instantaneous values of two line
voltages and two line currents during each
sampling period. (The four A/D inputs can be
measured and stored concurrently together with
calculated power factor and power, as well as
rms values of currents and voltages for any
further evaluations). All transducer signals are
filtered using external analogue filters to
remove high frequency components prior to
sampling by the ADC input section. The
outputs of these analogue filters are then
sampled at fixed time intervals (typically 100-
1000 psec), the currents are digitised with 16-
bit ADC and voltages are digitised with 12-bit
 ADC and processed in real time during every
sampling interval and then stored.
0 An intelligent High Power Three -Phase
Inverter rated at 415V, lOOA three phase
output, with DC input of llOV, 100Ah. It
employed Insulated Gate Bipolar Transistor
modules as the switching devices with switching
speed of more than 15kHz., each rated at 1200V
and 200A with deadtime of 2.5psec. The
modules has been specially designed to protect
the system from both internal and external fault
and can in extreme circumstances run at twice
at rated rating.
0 The lead-acid battery bank chosen for the
project is low maintenance air-vented type
consisting of 19, 6V cells connected in series to
provide 1lOV, 1OOAh capability. Each battery
pack can last for 10 hours at 10-ampere with
end voltage equal to 1.8V per cell.
The system configuration is shown in Figure 1.
- signal from positive to negative value. Initially the
1 BESS is now supplying not only the: load but also is
Figure 1 -- System Configuration
2.2. CONTROL STRATEGY
The control Strategy for the Battery Energy Storage
System is based on Figure 2.
The current in the source is compared with a
reference waveform, in this case the voltage across
RIin Figure 1. In Fig. 2, the transistors or IGBT's
are switched ON and OFF to ensure that the BESS
(Ic)will supply or absorb the required current to
force the supply current (Is) to follow the reference
waveform both in magnitude and phase. As the
capacitor (C) and inductor (L) are varied in Figure
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1, a shifted waveform of the reference signal can be
obtained. In this way the power factor of the supply
can be varied, from 50" lagging to 50' leading,
while at the same time the BESS can be made to
provide or absorb active power. As the reference is
independent of the load current (IL) in Figure 2, the
supply current waveform will be kept sinusoidal,
even though the output current is non-sinusoidal.
2.3. RESULTS
The following shows the result from the laboratory
experiment for different aspects of the BESS
capability.
2.3.1. Fast control of BESS active power
from generating to absorbing power
Figures 3 and 4 shows the response of the BESS
following a change in the polarity of the reference
input current is controlled at 4A in phase with the
supply voltage. The load current is lagging the
supply voltage and in terms of phasolr, IL = 4.5/-18O
as shown in Figure 3(c) . Therefore the BESS is
supplying part of the load current as shown in Fig.
3(d). When the polarity of the reference waveform
is reversed, the input current is now 180° apart from
the supply voltage as shown in Figures 4(a) & (b).
pumping power back to the supply as shown in
Figure 4(d). The load current remains the Same as
before. This demonstrates that the output of BESS
can vary from positive value to negative value. As
the response is very fast, such a capability can be
used to damp oscillation by charging and
discharging BESS to counter the rising and reducing
acceleration. It can be used to provide damping as
well for transient disturbances as well as negative
load shedding.
2.3.2. Applying BESS for load levelling
Figure 5 shows the potential operation of the BESS
for load levelling. There are three divisions of time:
early morning time, day time, and night time. As
can be seen from the load current curve, the load is
the highest during the day time (IL= 8.OA during
the day and 1.6A at night). Without BESS, the
supply current will have to follow ?he load current
and therefore the maximum demamd will be 8A,
which can be even higher if there is ii sudden change
in load during its peak load. With the BESS
installed, the supply current can be controlled to be
maintained at 5.6A throughout the day and night
giving a load factor of 1. During the day the BESS is
used to supply the load and discharge the batteries
associated with the BESS and during early morning
time and at night time when the load is low, the . . .
4 om ow o
n 40 o'! - 0 - I
batteries are charged. The level of the supply current TI** 7-d

is controlled by the reference signal and can be Figure 4(a)

Ye.. Figure 4(b)
I P C I

adjusted to ensure that the losses associated with

charging and discharging is taken care of, i.e. more
energy is available to charge than to discharge. This
is taken care of by the microprocessor controller,
which will also monitor the battery state of charge
to avoid total discharge of the battery.
Figure 4(c) Figure 4(d)
414%

M Figure 4: Reversing reference waveform

(a) Supply voltage, (b) load current, (c) supply
% GRID
current, and (d) BESS current

__-

2 0 0.050.10 0.050.10 0.050.10 0.050.10 0.050.1

Tm(=)
4 LoadCurent

5 0 005010 005010 00501 0 005010 0.0501

Figure 2. Control Strategy of BESS
-9- Tirre(sec)

1
L
BEssCurrent
Y I a<
.-. 01
a Q
841
-
;;. 0 oc5010 00501 0 00501 0 00501 0 00501

f: Figure 5 BESS for load levelling

Tim(sec)

Figure 3(a) Figure 3(b) 2.3.3. Active Filtering Action of the BESS

To prove the active filtering capability of the BESS,

the load is dstorted artificially using a diode in
series with the load, as shown in Figure 6 with the
same resistance value as before. The reference
current is set to 5A rms in phase with the supply.
*'.U2 4
Figs. 7(a)-(c) shows the results of the experiment.
Figure 3(c) Figure 3(d) The load current is clipped whenever the supply
voltage goes positive, but the supply current is
Figure 3: BESS operation when supply current is maintained to be sinusoidal following closely the
controlled to be in phase with supply voltage. reference current. The BESS absorbs the required
(a) Supply voltage, (b) load current, (c) supply current during the positive cycle to ensure that the
current, and (d) BESS current supply current remains sinusoidal. This
demonstrates that the BESS is acting as an active

256
filter naturally without any requirement for extra frequency ripple will be filtered out by the HV
control strategy. transformer. Fig. 8(b) shows the BESS current
- waveform. Although in theory, the EIESS will supply
zero current but due to the hysteresis control, a small
I current still flows, which is equal to the difference
between the controlled supply current and the load
Dt -. =!=- L-l f - t--, current.

2.3.5. Operation when the load is disconnected

I
I
I
I
1 I The load current is reduced to zero by disconnecting
the load. The reference current is kept constant as
before. The results are shown in Figure 9(a)-(c). No
effect is seen on the supply current as the load is
disconnected. It is maintained at 5AL rms With unity
power factor (Fig. 9(a)), but now the BESS absorbs
all the supply current as shown in Figure 9(b). This
corresponds to the case of light load at night, where
the supply current is used to charge the batteries
associated with the BESS and this is observed by
Figure 6 - Circuit for distorted load
recording a negative current going to the batteries.

Figure 7(a) Supply Current

Figure 8(a) Supply currjent

--a
. ..*.*- ...-
Y IYI
w-
I. .I

Figure 7(b) BESS Current & 7(c) Load Current

Figure 8@)BESS current & 8(c) Load current
Figure 7: Effect of distorted load current
Figure 8: Effect of setting reference current equal to
load current
2.3.4. Operation when the source current is
controlled to be equal to the load current
2.3.6. Operation when the reference current is
To investigate this operation, the load Current is set
set to zero
to be 5A rms with unity power factor, i.e. pure
The load current is maintained at 5 A rmswith unity
resistive load. The magnitude of the reference
power factor (Fig. lO(c)) and the reference
waveform is also set to be 5A rms in phase with the
waveform magnitude is now reduced to OA. In this
supply voltage. The results are shown in Fig. 8(a)-
way the BESS is now supplying all the load current.
(c). Figure 8(a) shows the input current waveform. It
As expected the supply current contains ripples due
has a slight ripple due to the hysteresis control, but
to the hysteresis control with an average of 0 Amp
the waveform follows closely the reference
(Fig. 10(a)), and the BESS current is roughly equal
waveform both in magnitude and phase. The high
to the load current Fig lO(b)), and the addition of

257
supply current and battery current waveform will
form the load current waveform in accordance with
*-
Kirchhoffs current law. If BESS has sufficient 7

energy it can be used to supply the load current

!’:-
E.=

--
during peak period. .
.I

. :U
: .IU I., I
. 1 0 U. aa

Figure lO(a) Supply Current

4 6 om om oar om
L(U
om5 o* om ID( ,b.

Figure 9(a) Supply Current

Figure 100) BESS Current & lO(c) Load Current

Figure 10: Effect of setting reference current to be
equal to zero

REFERENCES
Figure 9 0 ) BESS Current & 9(c) Load current
Figure 9: Effect of disconnecting load
3. CONCLUSIONS
This paper has described a new topology of a BESS
system developed at Hong Kong Polytechnic
University to improve the operation and control of a
power system. Results from the laboratory
experiments have been presented to show the
effectiveness of the system.
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area oscillation modes through excitation
systems”, E E E Trans. on Power Systems, Vol.
9, No. 1, February 1994, pp. 494-502.
“Flexible AC Transmission Systems (FACTS):
Scoping Study”, EPFU Report, prepared by
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Gyugi, L. “Unified Power-flow Control Concept
for Flexible AC Transmission Systems”, IEE
Proc. Pt.C, Vol. 139, No.4, July 1992, pp. 323-
331.
Lachs, W.R., Sutanto, D., “Battery Storage
Plant within Large Load Centres”, IEE Trans.
on Power Systems, Vol. 7, No. 2, May 1992, pp.
762-767.

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