An experimental analysis of Lithium battery use for high power application

In the recent years, the sustainable energy demand is growing among the civil and industrial sectors. However, the renewable sources present an aleatory behaviour, and the improvement of their reliable and secure employment have received great interest. In this framework, the energy storage devices can be used to smooth the market demand and to increase the control on the energy fluxes over transmission lines. To this aim, devices such as Li-ion batteries are widely used in several application scenarios, such as the transportation sector. Generally speaking, batteries are often classified as high-energy devices and their use for high-power applications is limited. Indeed, for the latter applications, other devices, such as supercapacitors or ultracapacitors, are usually employed. In the present work, the use of 3Ah 18650 Li-Ion batteries is investigated for high-power applications, and a performance analysis during pulsed discharge with current up to 50C is carried out. These experimental conditions are significantly beyond the manufacturer specifications; therefore, an accurate ageing estimation of the cell is required, and a novel internal resistance control method is proposed to monitor the state of health of the device.