DEE-54206

Electrical Energy Storages and

Electric Vehicles

Lecture notes

Antti Rautiainen, Kai Vuorilehto, Antti Supponen, Jenni Rekola,

Jukka Mäkinen

2018

v. 1.0
1.12.2018
“Engineering or technology is all about using the power of science to make life better for
people, to reduce cost, to improve comfort, to improve productivity, etc.”

N. R. Narayana Murthy

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Contents
Foreword.........................................................................................................................................................6
1 Introduction to energy storages .............................................................................................................7
1.1 Why? ..............................................................................................................................................7
1.2 What is an energy storage .............................................................................................................7
1.3 Basic energy storage characteristics ..............................................................................................9
2 Electrical energy storage technologies .................................................................................................11
2.1 Types of energy storage technologies..........................................................................................11
2.2 Mechanical energy storages ........................................................................................................11
2.2.1 Pumped Hydro Storage (PHS) ..................................................................................................11
2.2.2 Compressed air energy storage (CAES) ....................................................................................14
2.2.3 Flywheel energy storage (FES) .................................................................................................16
2.3 Electrochemical Energy storages .................................................................................................19
2.3.1 Secondary batteries and flow batteries ...................................................................................19
2.4 Chemical energy storages ............................................................................................................20
2.4.1 Power to gas to power (P2G2P) energy storages ....................................................................20
2.5 Electrical energy storages ............................................................................................................23
2.5.1 Supercapacitors........................................................................................................................23
2.5.2 Superconducting magnet energy storage (SMES)....................................................................25
2.6 Thermal energy storages..............................................................................................................26
3 Battery technology................................................................................................................................27
3.1 The very basics of batteries..........................................................................................................27
3.2 Operational principle of batteries ................................................................................................27
3.3 Battery chemistries ......................................................................................................................29
3.3.1 Primary batteries .....................................................................................................................29
3.3.2 Secondary batteries .................................................................................................................30
3.4 Battery geometries.......................................................................................................................31
3.5 Battery properties ........................................................................................................................34
3.6 Lithium-ion batteries ....................................................................................................................36
3.6.1 Basic principle of the lithium-ion battery ................................................................................37
3.6.2 Traditional materials of the lithium-ion battery ......................................................................37
3.6.3 Properties of the lithium-ion battery .......................................................................................39
3.6.4 Modern positive electrode materials of the lithium-ion battery.............................................39

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 3.6.5 Modern negative electrode materials of the lithium-ion battery ...........................................40
3.6.6 Solid-electrolyte-interface, SEI.................................................................................................41
3.6.7 Safety of lithium-ion batteries .................................................................................................42
3.6.8 Production of lithium-ion cells .................................................................................................43
3.6.9 Choosing the right lithium-ion cells .........................................................................................44
3.7 Battery management systems (BMS) and battery pack design ...................................................47
3.7.1 Basic battery pack design.........................................................................................................47
3.7.2 BMS functionalities ..................................................................................................................48
3.7.3 BMS hardware and topology ...................................................................................................52
4 Applications of electrical energy storages ............................................................................................53
4.1 Why energy storages and interesting ..........................................................................................53
4.1.1 Emission reductions .................................................................................................................53
4.1.2 Energy storage price decrease .................................................................................................56
4.2 Applications of electrical energy storages in power system ........................................................58
4.3 Specific examples of energy storage applications........................................................................61
4.3.1 Power system reserves and balancing power market .............................................................62
4.3.2 Solar power ramp rate control.................................................................................................64
4.3.3 Increasing the reliability of electricity distribution ..................................................................66
4.3.4 Energy cost minimization in domestic environment ...............................................................68
5 Introduction to electric vehicles ...........................................................................................................71
5.1 What are electric Vehicles?..........................................................................................................71
5.2 EV charging in practice .................................................................................................................75
5.3 Electric drives and chargers of EVs...............................................................................................81
5.3.1 Motor types used in EVs ..........................................................................................................81
5.3.2 Power electronic converters used to control the motors in EVs .............................................85
5.4 Drivers for electrification of road transportation ........................................................................87
5.4.1 Reduction of greenhouse gas emissions ..................................................................................88
5.4.2 Reduction of air quality related emissions...............................................................................90
5.4.3 Reduction of oil dependency ...................................................................................................91
5.4.4 Reduction of traffic noise in cities............................................................................................92
5.4.5 Other drivers ............................................................................................................................92
5.5 Barriers of EVs ..............................................................................................................................92
5.6 Electric buses................................................................................................................................94
5.6.1 Battery size and charging .........................................................................................................95

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 5.6.2 Charging concepts ....................................................................................................................96
5.6.3 Interoperated High Power Charging stations ..........................................................................98
5.6.4 Challenges associated to heavy vehicle charging ....................................................................99
5.6.5 Summary of electric buses .................................................................................................... 101
5.7 Competitors of EVs in the road transportation ........................................................................ 101
6 Electric vehicles in power systems..................................................................................................... 103
6.1 Possible roles of EVs in power systems ..................................................................................... 103
6.2 EV charging in the grids ............................................................................................................. 103
6.2.1 Transmission grid level .......................................................................................................... 104
6.2.2 Distribution grid .................................................................................................................... 105
6.2.3 Networks of real estates ....................................................................................................... 108
6.3 EVs as active resources for the power systems ........................................................................ 111
6.4 EVs as controllable loads (“smart charging”) ............................................................................ 113
6.5 EVs as energy storages for the grid ........................................................................................... 113
References ................................................................................................................................................. 117

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Foreword

The purpose of the course is to give a holistic understanding of electrical energy storage technology,
especially battery technology, and the most important foreseeable electrical energy storage applications
in the energy sector, especially electric vehicles. Things are mostly looked from power/energy system’s
point-of-view

This document comprises the main body of the course, and is based on many sources. This document does
not even try to be all-inclusive presentation of the topic, but rather a skeleton of the course content helping
the knowledge growth of the students.

The document is written by Antti Rautiainen, with the following exceptions:

- Dr. Kai Vuorilehto from EAS Batteries has written Section 2.5.1 (Supercapacitors) and most of the
Section 3 (Battery technology)
- Mr. Antti Supponen from TUT wrote the Section 3.7 (Battery management systems (BMS) and
battery pack design)
- Dr. Jenni Rekola from TUT wrote the Section 5.3 (Electric drives and chargers of EVs)
- Mr. Jukka Mäkinen from ABB group wrote the Section 5.6 (Electric buses)

In addition, the main author wants to thank Markku Järvelä and Juha Koskela for providing material for the
Sections 4.3.2 and 4.3.4, respectively.

If you find any errors or mistakes in this document, please inform the main author ([Link]@[Link],
tel. +35840 849 0916).

I hope that you find the course interesting and useful for your future needs. Enjoy!

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1 Introduction to energy storages
1.1 Why?
Why energy storages are interesting? The main author of this document tried to condense the answer for
this question to one picture, which is Fig. 1.1. The figure comprises two illustrative graphs: the cost of
energy storages and the value of energy storages with respect to time. The idea is that generally, the value
of energy storage applications seems to be increasing in the future, and simultaneously the costs of energy
storage technology is decreasing. This is true for many applications in different domains. Depending on
application and technology, some technology-use-case-combinations are near the intersection of the
curves, which is the break-even point. Fig. 1.1 is the foundation of this course.
Cost/value (€)

Cost of energy
storage
Value of energy
storage

Time

Fig. 1.1. Illustrative presentation on the trends of the costs and value of energy storage.

1.2 What is an energy storage

I am confident that we all have some kind of a sense of what energy storage is. In this course, we simply
“define” energy storage system (ESS) as follows.

An energy storage system is an entity in which one can put energy in when needed, if the storage is not full,
and take the energy out (minus losses) when needed if the storage is not empty.

Fig. 1.2. The principle of an energy storage system.

This is not rocket science. You can put energy in to be stored and take it out from the storage. In every
energy storage system, you have losses. This means that you always get less energy out from the storage
than what you have put in. This means that over the lifetime of the energy storage system

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 ∑ 𝐸𝑛𝑒𝑟𝑔𝑦, 𝑜𝑢𝑡 < ∑ 𝐸𝑛𝑒𝑟𝑔𝑦, 𝑖𝑛
.

Typically, but not always, losses are in form of heat.

An energy storage system comprises typically two different parts: the energy storage element itself, i.e.
the entity which stores the energy, and energy conversion element (see Fig. 1.3). The energy conversion
device is used to “charge” or “discharge” the storage. This device can be for example a power electronic
converter in case of battery storage system or a synchronous machine in case of pumped hydro storage. In
this course, the energy conversion elements are not discussed extensively, because there are other courses
for that. The energy conversion element is an important part of the system and affects to the costs, nominal
power and other characteristics of the energy storage system.

Energy storage system

Energy Energy
Energy storage
conversion system/
element
element network

Fig. 1.3. Elements of an energy storage system.

Energy can be stored and transferred in different physical forms, like

 Electrochemical energy
 Chemical energy
 Electrical energy
 Mechanical energy
 Thermal energy (heat).

Exercise: Consider examples of energy storage technologies, where previous energy forms are used?

Different physical forms of energy are applied in different energy storage technologies. In Section 2,
different energy storage technologies are briefly reviewed and in Section 3, a comprehensive overview on
battery technology, especially on lithium-ion technology, is given.

The topic of the course mentions the concept “electrical energy storage”. In this course, electrical energy
storage (EES) system is defined to such a storage system which one can put electrical energy in and take
electrical energy out. This is illustrated in Fig. 1.4.

Fig. 1.4. Definition of electrical energy storage system.

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1.3 Basic energy storage characteristics
For every type of energy storage, there are some very fundamental properties, which should be considered.
The most fundamental properties are the following.
 Energy capacity (measured in Wh, kWh, MWh etc.)
 Power capacity/maximum input and output power (kW, MW etc.)
 Specific energy (kWh/kg) and energy density (kWh/l)
 Specific power (kW/kg) and power density (kW/l)
 Speed of response (ms, s, min, h, d)
 Efficiency, total efficiency of charge-discharge cycle (%)
 Self-discharge rate (e.g. %/month)
 Lifetime
o Cycle life (number of charge-discharge cycles)
o Calendar life (a)
 Costs
o Investment costs
 Cost per energy capacity (€/kWh, €/MWh)
 Cost per power (€/kW, €/MW)
o Operational costs

Energy and power capacities are very fundamental features. When energy storage system is being
designed, these are the very basic characteristics, which should be carefully dimensioned, and these are
often the most significant cost factors in energy storage system investments. In this world, everything runs
with energy, and the energy capacity is directly proportional to the maximum operation time of the ESS in
certain application.

Especially in mobile applications, like electric vehicles (EVs), energy and power capacity per weight (specific
energy and specific power) or per volume (energy density and power density) is a significant property.
Especially in EVs, energy per volume (Wh/l) is very important, as there is not too much space anyway in the
car and therefore every liter usable for luggage or passengers is important.

Speed of response means that how fast the power of the storage can be ramped up or down. In some
applications, like electric vehicles, it is very important to have very fast response time in order run the
application with sufficient performance. This means that response times of ms scale is required. For
example, in many power system applications seconds to minutes scale is enough.

Efficiency (or energy efficiency) is defined in this course as the total efficiency of a charge-discharge cycle
meaning that how big proportion of the energy that was supplied to the storage is converted to losses
during the charge-discharge-cycle.

Self-discharge rate means that when the energy is stored to the system, part of the energy is dissipated to
some kind of losses even when the storage is not used.

Lifetime of energy storages can be roughly divided into two types: cycle and life. Cycle life implies the
amount of charge-discharge cycles, which can be made before the techno-economic lifetime of the storage
is over. Calendar life implies to the fact that even if you would not use the storage system at all, it would
still die at some stage due to different phenomena affecting over time. For example, in lithium-ion

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batteries, charging and discharging the battery slowly damages the inner structure of the battery cells
leading to a limited number of cycles. On the other hand, if a lithium-ion battery is not used at all, the
detrimental side reactions inside the battery cause damage and make the lifetime of the battery limited.
The lifetime of the storage technology has strong impact on the economics of the system.

In order to have a decent energy storage system in some application, the total costs of the storage has to
be low enough. The costs can be divided into two categories: investment costs and operational costs. In
many energy storage solutions, the operational costs are very low, which makes energy storage systems
very capital intensive. The costs can also be expressed as cost per energy or power capacity. This makes it
easier to compare different technologies.

Different applications set different requirements for the energy storage system. The needs of different
application vary significantly. Some technologies fit to an application better than others, which means that
there is no “one size fits all” all type energy storage technology. The goodness of an energy storage is
application and technology specific. In this course, we encourage students to define the “the goodness” of
an ESS in terms of economics and more specifically in terms of total cost of ownership (TCO). TCO analysis
answers the question “What are the lifetime costs and benefits of the ESS in the selected application?”
From the benefit and cost quantification you can calculate the net present value of the “cash flow” over
the lifetime of the ESS. To make this kind of goodness quantification, one must investigate the benefits and
the costs of the storage system in certain application. In the literature work of the course, such an analysis
is made.

Not all energy storage technologies are in the same level of readiness in terms of techno-economic
development. In [EASAC17], a measurement scale technical readiness level (TRL) is introduced. In TRL
scale, there are nine different levels in which a technology can be:

TRL 1: basic principles observed

TRL 2: technology concept formulated
TRL 3: experimental proof of concept
TRL 4: technology validated in laboratory
TRL 5: technology validated in relevant environment
TRL 6: technology demonstrated in relevant environment
TRL 7: system prototype demonstration in operational environment
TRL 8: system complete and qualified
TRL 9: actual system proved in operational environment.

Using TRL scale, the maturity of a piece of technology can be assessed.

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2 Electrical energy storage technologies
In this course, we focus mostly on battery technology (Section 3), but in this section, a very brief
overview is given related to some other energy storage technologies. In the course “DEE-53100 Johdatus
uusiutuviin energianlähteisiin” (given in Finnish) there is more comprehensive overview on different non-
battery-energy-storage technologies. In addition, course “DEE-54011 Suprajohtavuus” (given in Finnish)
gives in-depth information on superconducting magnet energy storage technology and the course “DEE-
54020 Polttokennot ja vetyteknologia” (given in Finnish) gives very good understanding on hydrogen
technology. To study these things more the reader could also take a look on references [Díaz-
González16], [IEC11], [IEA14], [EASAC17] and [Barbour18].

2.1 Types of energy storage technologies

Different energy storage technologies can be divided into subtypes depending on the form in which the
energy is stored in the system. In this course, a rough division into five different categories: mechanical,
electrochemical, chemical, electrical and thermal.

Electrical energy storage systems

Mechanical Electrochemical Electrical

Secondary batteries (Lead- acid/ Supercapacitors/Electric double-
Pumped hydro storage (PHS)
Li-ion/NaS) layer capacitors (EDLC)

Compressed air energy storage Superconducting magnet energy

Flow batteries
(CAES) storage (SMES)

Flywheel energy storage (FES)

Chemical Thermal
Sensible heat/Latent heat
Power to gas to power (P2G2P)
storages

Fig. 2.1. Some energy storage technologies. Picture: Partly adapted and redrawn based on [IEC11].

2.2 Mechanical energy storages

2.2.1 Pumped Hydro Storage (PHS)
Fig. 2.2 presents the principle of pumped hydro storage (PHS). The main idea of PHS is to store energy as
potential energy of water. In a PHS unit, there is a high-level and low-level water reservoirs containing
water. When a PHS unit is being “discharged”, the water flows downhill from high-level reservoir to low-
level reservoir through a water turbine-generator-system which produces electricity. When PHS is being
“charged”, the water is pumped uphill from low-level reservoir to high-level reservoir.

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 Fig. 2.2. The principle of pumped hydro storage. [Link]
storage-phs/.

The amount of energy stored (without losses) is

𝐸 = 𝑚𝑔ℎ = 𝜌𝑉𝑔ℎ (2.1)

and correspondingly the power of the PHS unit (without losses) is

𝑑𝐸 𝑑𝑚 𝑑𝑉
𝑃= = 𝑔ℎ = 𝜌𝑔ℎ = 𝑉̇ 𝜌𝑔ℎ (2.2)
𝑑𝑡 𝑑𝑡 𝑑𝑡
where

𝑚 = mass of the water in the upper reservoir

𝑔 = acceleration due to gravity,
ℎ = altitude difference
𝜌 = density of water
𝑉 = volume of the water in the upper reservoir
𝑉̇ = volumetric rate of water flow (e.g. in m3/s).

Exercise: Consider building your own pumped hydro storage (PHS) unit to your backyard. If you would have
a water tank of 10 m3, how tall tower you would have to build for the tank in order to have a storage of 10
kWh? You can just assess the height roughly assuming ideal generator etc.

The two equations above imply that in order to have large energy capacity in PHS, you have to have large
mass of water, which means big waters reservoirs, and/or high altitude difference between the reservoirs.
Considering power capacity, you have to have high altitude difference and/or high rate of water flow in
order to have high power capacity. All of these facts imply that if one wants to build PHS units with
reasonable costs, you should have natural altitude differences and natural reservoirs to have a cost-
efficient system. This means that PHS units have been built in countries with high natural altitude
differences and natural lakes.

PHS definitely dominate the market share of electrical energy storage systems. Fig. 2.3. shows the market
shares of different ESS technologies Europe. The figure shows that in 2016 the total installed PHS capacity

12
was over 48 TW, which makes the market share of PHS roughly 99%. PHS units have been used in the world
for long time and they present mature technology. There is some room for increasing PHS capacity in the
future (thousands of MW in Europe) [Díaz-González16]. Figure 2.4 presents two examples of real PHS units.

Fig. 2.3. Market shares of different ESS technologies in Europe. [EASAC17].

Fig. 2.4. Two examples of real PHS units. Pictures: Left: [Link]
[Link], right: [Link]
content/uploads/2017/06/[Link]

Table 2.1. presents some features and the state of PHS technology.

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 Table 2.1. Features and the state of PHS technology. Situation in September of 2016 [EASAC17].
Feature Value
Technical readiness level (1–9) 9
Typical power capacity per plant (MW) 100’s
Installed power capacity (MW) worldwide 164 629
Installed energy capacity (MWh) worldwide -
Installed power capacity (MW) in EU28+NO+CH 48 325
Installed energy capacity (MWh) in EU28+NO+CH -
Number of grid connected system working in EU28 + NO + CH 157
Typical duration at rated power Hours
Speed of response Seconds to minutes
Cycle life n/a
Efficiency 70–80%

Table 2.2. Summarizes the strengths and weaknesses of PHS technology.

Table 2.2. Strengths and weaknesses of pumped hydro storages.

Strengths: Weaknesses:
Long life Requires natural altitude difference which restricts
the construction significantly
Mature technology Works only in large scale
Quite good efficiency
Quite fast response

2.2.2 Compressed air energy storage (CAES)

The main idea in compressed air energy storage (CAES) system is to store energy in the mechanical
pressure of air in some kind of a high-pressure air reservoir which is either an underground structure or an
above-ground system of vessels or pipes [IEC11]. When a CAES system is “charged”, the air is compressed
and stored to the reservoir, and when CAES is “discharged”, the compressed air is taken from the reservoir.

The operation principle of a CAES system is presented in Fig. 2.5. Typically, the pressurized air of CAES is
used in a gas turbine (GT). In a regular GT process (applying so called Brayton cycle), air is first compressed
in high pressure and then lead to the combustion chamber where some fuel is combusted in high pressure.
After this, the exhaust gases of the combustion are lead to a turbine. The exhaust gases run the turbine,
which further runs a generator producing electricity. The role of CAES is in this process is to supply high-
pressure air to the compressor(s) in the compression phase of the process. Air compression takes energy,
and when high-pressure air from CAES is used in energy production instead of compressing it (completely)
in a compressor, the efficiency of the gas turbine process improves.

One of the drawbacks of CAES is its low efficiency. In the existing systems, the heat released during
compression is dissipated to the atmosphere, and before the air is used in the GT plant, the air must be
reheated. This is called diabatic CAES and leads to low roundtrip efficiencies of the CAES systems. However,
CAES systems which would also store the heat are under research and are called adiabatic CAES. [IEC11]

The most essential part of a CAES system is the air reservoir. The possibilities to construct a CAES plant
depend mainly on the availability of proper reservoirs. Typical underground storage options are caverns,

14
aquifers or abandoned mines [IEC11]. In order to have an economically feasible system, there should be a
ready reservoir. This restricts the practical possibilities to construct new CAES systems.

Fig. 2.5. The principle of compressed air energy storage system.

[Link]

Table 2.3 summarizes the features and states of CAES technology. Figures 2.6 and 2.7 show two examples
of real CAES plants. Table 2.4 summarizes the strengths and weaknesses of CAES technology.

Table 2.3. Features and state of CAES technology. Situation in September of 2016 [EASAC17].
Feature Value
Technical readiness level (1–9) 8
Typical power capacity per plant (MW) 100’s
Installed power capacity (MW) worldwide 437
Installed energy capacity (MWh) worldwide 4013
Installed power capacity (MW) in EU28+NO+CH 322
Installed energy capacity (MWh) in EU28+NO+CH 646
Number of grid connected system working in EU28 + NO + CH 3
Typical duration at rated power hours
Speed of response minutes
Cycle life 10 000
Efficiency ~50%

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 Fig. 2.6. CAES system in Huntorf, Germany. In operation since 1978, nominal power 320 MW. [IEC11]

Fig. 2.7. CAES system in McIntosh (Alabama, US). In operation since 1991, nominal power 110 MW.
[Link]

Table 2.4. Strengths and weaknesses of CAES technology.

Strengths: Weaknesses:
Long life Requires natural caverns which restricts the
construction significantly
Mature technology Requires gas turbine power plant
Low efficiency
Is suitable only for large scale applications

2.2.3 Flywheel energy storage (FES)

In a flywheel energy storage (FES) system, energy is stored as mechanical rotational kinetic energy of the
rim/cylinder. When “charge” the FES, you accelerate the cylinder, and when you “discharge” the FES, you
decelerate the cylinder. The operation principle and the basic structure of a FES system is illustrated in Fig.
2.8. In sophisticated FES systems, the rim is located in a vacuum container to minimize air friction losses.
Also magnetic bearings are used, which means that the rotating cylinder floats in the vacuum and does not
physically touch the framework of the FES system. This decreases the bearing friction losses. Flywheel
storages are quite scalable; there can be systems of various sizes.

16
 Fig. 2.8. The operation principle and the basic structure of a FES system. [Díaz-González16]

The amount of energy stored in a FES system (without losses) is

1
𝐸 = 𝐽𝜔2 (2.3)
2
where 𝐽 is the moment of inertia of the rotating parts and 𝜔 is the rotational speed. It can be seen that the
energy is proportional to the moment of inertia 𝐽 and to the square of the rotational speed 𝜔. This means
that in order to have high energy capacity, one has to have large 𝐽 and/or large 𝜔. The moment of inertia
𝐽 depends of the physical properties of the rotating parts. Let us look a simple example: a homogenous
cylinder presented in Fig. 2.9.

ρ
R
h

Fig. 2.9. A homogenous cylinder.

The moment of inertia of a homogenous cylinder is

1 1 1
𝐽 = 𝑚𝑅2 = 𝜋𝑅2 ℎ𝜌𝑅2 = 𝜋ℎ𝜌𝑅4 (2.4)
2 2 2
where 𝑚 is the mass, 𝑅 is the radius, ℎ is the height and 𝜌 is the mass density (e.g. in kg/m3) of the cylinder.
From the previous equations one can see, that in order to have increase 𝐽, one must increase one or more
of the following cylinder properties: height, mass density or radius. In general, it is always a good thing to
have a light-weighted and physically compact system. Increasing height and/or radius increases the
physical size of the FES, and the increase of the mass density increases the mass of the system. In many
applications, especially in mobile ones, there are certain limits for weight and physical size. Therefore it
would be very reasonable to have high rotational speed 𝜔. High rotational speed enables high amount of

17
energy stored to a small and light-weighted system. Modern high-speed FES systems can have rotational
speeds of around 100,000 of rounds per minute (rpm). That is about 1670 rounds per second!

A disadvantage of FES system is high self-discharge rate due to air friction and bearing losses. Therefore
FES systems fit well in applications where the frequency of charge-discharge cycles is high. Also, FES
systems fit to applications where you need high-power but small energy.

Table 2.5 summarizes the features and state of FES technology.

Table 2.5. Features and state of FES technology. Situation in September of 2016 [EASAC17].
Feature Value
Technical readiness level (1–9) 8
Typical power capacity per plant (MW) 10’s
Installed power capacity (MW) worldwide 144
Installed energy capacity (MWh) worldwide 22
Installed power capacity (MW) in EU28+NO+CH 77
Installed energy capacity (MWh) in EU28+NO+CH 6
Number of grid connected system working in EU28 + NO + CH 12
Typical duration at rated power seconds–minutes
Speed of response ms to s
Cycle life >100 000
Efficiency 90%

Figures 2.10 and 2.11 presents examples of FES systems. Table 2.6 summarizes the strengths and
weaknesses of FES systems.

Fig. 2.10. Example of a FES system. [Link]

kinetics-long-duration-flywheels-to-the-test

18
 Fig. 2.11. Another example of a FES system. [Link]
[Link]/content/elp/en/articles/2016/11/flywheel-energy-storage-device-to-be-installed-
near-paris/_jcr_content/leftcolumn/article/[Link]/[Link]

Table 2.6. Strengths and weaknesses of FES technology.

Strengths: Weaknesses:
Long life High self-discharge rate
Quite mature technology High price
Very fast response
Scalable: fits to storages of many sizes

2.3 Electrochemical Energy storages

2.3.1 Secondary batteries and flow batteries
A battery energy storage (BES) system converts electrical energy into potential chemical energy while
charging releases electrical energy from potential chemical energy while discharging. Battery technology is
discussed in length in Section 3, but in this section a very brief comparison some battery technologies is
given in a similar terms as with other electrical energy storage technologies presented in Table 2.7. In Table
2.8, also the main strengths and weaknesses of batteries is given.

19
Table 2.7. Features of electrochemical storages, situation in September of 2016, source: mainly [EASAC17]

Technical readiness level Lead-acid Sodium-Sulfur Lithium-ion

Flow batteries
(1–9) batteries (NaS) batteries batteries
Technical readiness level
9 9 9 7
(1–9)
Typical power capacity per
up to 10’s MW up to 10’s MW up to 10’s MW up to 10 MW
plant (MW)
Installed power capacity
110 189 1 134 74
(MW) worldwide
Installed energy capacity
131 1 273 1 321 256
(MWh) worldwide
Installed power capacity
7 38 186 1
(MW) in EU28+NO+CH
Installed energy capacity
8 296 343 5
(MWh) in U28+NO+CH
Number of grid connected
systems working in 15 6 34 103 16
EU28+NO+CH
Typical duration at rated
min’s hours min’s – hours hours
power
Speed of response ms to s ms to s ms to s ms to s
Cycle life 1000 5000 *100 000 100 000
Efficiency 75–90% 70–85% 85–90% 70–85%
*Extremely “up to” value, the value is mostly BS.

Table 2.8. Strengths and weaknesses of BES systems.

Strengths: Weaknesses:
Quite mature technology Modest life
Scalable: fits to storages of many sizes High (but decreasing) price
Very fast response
High specific power and energy
High energy and power density

2.4 Chemical energy storages

2.4.1 Power to gas to power (P2G2P) energy storages
The present world has totally got into a rut in using gaseous, liquid and solid fuels in energy production. So
far, excluding biofuels, these fuels have been mostly fossil. However, in the energy system of the future, it
could be possible to have synthetic gaseous, liquid and solid hydrocarbon fuels, whose energy source would
be clean electricity like solar power. This means that electrical energy could be stored in a form of synthetic
fuel. This would enable the storage of extremely large amounts of energy and partly the use of present
type energy infrastructure.

One of the most interesting concepts of this area is power-to-gas-to-power (P2G2P) concept. P2G2P
means that you first have some clean electricity, and then you use it to create synthetic gas. This gas is
either stored in some kind of gas container used later to produce power and heat. One of the very
important branches of P2G2P concept is the use of hydrogen gas and synthetic methane as the energy
carrier gas. Figure 2.12 presents the principle of P2G2P concept.

20
 Electricity grid

Electricity Electricity
Electri-
Wind Electro- H2 Fuel Combustion city
H2 H2 or
power lyzer storage cell engine
Electri-
Solar city
power Methana- H2 Fuel Gas
H2 or
tion cell turbine
Nuclear
power
CH4
Power CH4
production CH4

Natural gas/methane pipelines and storage facilities

Fig. 2.12. The principle of P2G2P concept. Redrawn based on
[Link]

The idea is to store electrical energy in chemical form as H2 (hydrogen gas) or CH4 (methane) gas. In order
to store the energy, one first needs water (H2O), which is fed to an electrolyzer. The electrolyzer
decompose the water into hydrogen gas H2 and oxygen gas O2, and this takes quite plenty of energy, which
in the P2G2P concepts would be electricity with zero or low CO2 emissions. The overall chemical reaction
of the decomposition would be then
2H2O (l) → 2H2 (g) + O2 (g). (2.5)
In the P2G2P concept of Fig. 2.12, the hydrogen gas would be stored to hydrogen storages to be used e.g.
in fuel cell cars. Hydrogen could also be used to produce electricity in fuel cells or combustion engines. Also
to small extent, the hydrogen gas could also be fed directly into the natural gas pipelines. However, in the
P2G2P concept, a great proportion of the hydrogen gas would be forwarded to a methanation process. In
the methanation process, synthetic methane CH4 gas is made. Natural gas, which is today used in notable
amounts in energy production, is mostly methane. In order to make synthetic methane, you need the
hydrogen gas H2 and carbon dioxide CO2 gas. The methanation reaction is

CO2 (g) + 4H2 (g) → CH4 (g) + 2H2O (l). (2.6)

Thus, in addition of the methane, you get also water. When CH4 is used in energy production, it releases
CO2, but very importantly, when synthetic methane is used, the CO2 is needed in the methanation enabling
a closed loop CO2 circulation. If the energy used in the electrolyzer and in the methanation process would
have zero or low CO2 emissions, it would lead to low or zero CO2 emission P2G2P system.

P2G2P is interesting concept because of to several reasons. One is that P2G2P is one of the rare
technologies enabling storing of very high amounts of energy. This will likely to be necessary in the clean
energy system of the future, as will be discussed in Section 4. Of course, in order to have huge P2G2P
storage facilities, big investments are needed. This is however, inevitably true for any other energy storage
technology too. Another thing is that in many cases the existing power production and gas transfer
infrastructure could be used while having zero or low CO2 emission system. Third thing is that in addition
to power and heat production, CH4 could be used in many other ways in the society. As Fig. 2.12 shows,
the synthetic renewable zero or low CO2 emission gas could be used directly in internal combustion engines
(ICE) or it could be used to produce electricity in gas turbine power plants (or fuel cells) or electricity and
heat in combined heat and power (CHP). Methane is used in some branches of industry, and today the
methane is fossil. In the society of the future, the methane needs could be fulfilled with renewable

21
synthetic methane. And actually, P2G2P could be extended to Power-to-X (P2X) meaning that using
electricity one can produce many types of synthetic hydrocarbons and chemical compounds.

P2G2P includes also some challenges. The technology is not mature yet although there are no showstopper
type obstacles in the horizon. One major challenge is the efficiency of the system. Between feeding the
power in to a P2G2P system and receiving power from the P2G2P, one loses tens of percent of the energy.
The efficiency depends on the process and the type of the use of the gas, but e.g. [EASAC17] gives the
efficiency of a P2G2P to be around 50%. This means that there should be very cheap electricity available in
the future in order to have economically feasible P2G2P systems.

Table 2.9 presents the features and state of P2G2P technology, and Table 2.10 summarizes the strengths
and weaknesses of P2G2P systems.

Table 2.9. Features and state of P2G2P technology. Situation in September of 2016 [EASAC17].
Feature Value
Technical readiness level (1–9) 7
Typical power capacity per plant (MW) 100’s
Installed power capacity (MW) worldwide n/a
Installed energy capacity (MWh) worldwide n/a
Installed power capacity (MW) in EU28+NO+CH n/a
Installed energy capacity (MWh) in EU28+NO+CH n/a
Number of grid connected system working in EU28 + NO + CH n/a
Typical duration at rated power days
Speed of response seconds to minutes
Cycle life n/a
Efficiency ~50%

Table 2.10. Strengths and weaknesses of P2G2P systems.

Strengths: Weaknesses:
Presently one of the rare possibility for extremely Not very mature technology
large storages
Long life Low efficiency
Quite scalable: fits to storages of many sizes High price
Gas can fulfill many kinds of needs (power, heat,
transportation, industry)

A very interesting synthetic methane system is in the plans of the space company SpaceX. The plan of the
SpaceX is plans to build a rocket transportation system enabling travelling mars, and the rockets and the
boosters will be using subcooled and liquefied methane and oxygen as the propellant. Essential part of the
mars transportation system is the ability to produce the fuel/propellant in the mars using the local
resources of mars. The resources would include the water ice of mars and the CO2 of the mars atmosphere.
In addition to these two, huge amount of electricity made with solar panels is needed. The principle of the
system is identical with the system introduced above: you first take the water from mars to an electrolyzer,
decompose the water into hydrogen and oxygen gases, take CO2 (from the atmosphere of mars) and put it
into a methanation process together with the hydrogen gas produce earlier. The result of this is synthetic
methane and oxygen gases, which can be liquefied and used as rocket propellants.

22
2.5 Electrical energy storages
Storing energy in electrical form can be made basically in two ways: either in electric or magnetic field.
Most commonly referred corresponding technologies are supercapacitors or superconducting magnet
energy storage (SMES), respectively.

2.5.1 Supercapacitors
Supercapacitors, ultracapacitors and electric double-layer capacitors are different names for the same
energy storage device. Although “electric double-layer capacitor” would be the scientifically correct name,
we call it here “supercapacitor” to keep things simple.

A supercapacitor consists of two mostly identical electrodes, a liquid electrolyte combining the electrodes
electrochemically, and a porous separator separating the electrodes electrically (Figure 2.13). These are
normally packed in an aluminum cylinder. The electrodes are made of extremely porous activated carbon
that has been coated on aluminum foil. The electrolyte is a complex salt (mostly tetraethylammonium-
tetrafluoroborate, TEA-BF4) dissolved in organic liquid (acetonitrile or propylene carbonate). The separator
is made of cellulose or polypropene.

Fig. 2.13. Structure of a supercapacitor.

In an uncharged supercapacitor, the ions of the salt, TEA+ and BF4– are located randomly in the pores of the
electrodes and the separator (see Fig. 2.14). When charging the supercapacitor, the negative ions migrate
to the positive electrode surface, and the positive ions to the negative surface. This separation of charge,
and the resulting electric fields are the basis of the stored energy.

23
 Fig. 2.14. Supercapacitor in uncharged and charged states.

Batteries store energy as chemical energy: During charge, electric energy is converted into chemical energy,
during discharge chemical energy is converted into electric energy. In supercapacitors, no such conversion
takes place. The energy of a supercapacitor is stored as electric energy in the solid-liquid (electrode-
electrolyte) interface.

As there is no conversion to chemical energy, there are almost no conversion losses in a supercapacitor.
The charge-discharge process is extremely fast (often less than 1 second), the currents are high (up to
thousands of amperes), and the chemical stability is excellent (up to 1,000,000 charge-discharge cycles).
The drawback of supercapacitors is the low amount of energy that can be stored (5–10 Wh/kg compared
to 100–200 Wh/kg in lithium-ion batteries). Due to high currents (=high power) and low energy, a
supercapacitor is merely a power storage device than an energy storage device.

Supercapacitors are usable in applications where a high power is needed for a short time. Such applications
are e.g. cranes in harbors, start-stop engines of cars, cold-starting systems of trucks and back-up power
systems in wind turbines. A typical supercapacitor cell has a capacitance of 500 F – 3400 F (see Fig. 2.15).
Additionally, small supercapacitors with a capacitance in the range of 0.1-10F do exist. They are used in
electronics e.g. for memory back-up. Small supercapacitors should not be mixed with ordinary (non-super)
capacitors having capacitances in the range of some μF.

24
 Fig. 2.15. A standard sized 3000F supercapacitor: diameter 60mm and height 138mm. The maximum
voltage of a supercapacitor cell varies between 2.5-3.0V. During storage and transport, the voltage is 0V.

2.5.2 Superconducting magnet energy storage (SMES)

The idea of superconducting magnet energy storages (SMES) is to store electrical energy to the magnetic
field of a superconducting coil/magnet. Fig. 2.16 presents the operation principle of the SMES. The coil is
in a superconducting state meaning that the resistance of the superconducting conductors is zero. This
allows capturing current flowing to a closed loop and thus storing the energy. The amount of energy stored
in the SMES is
1
𝐸 = 𝐿𝑖 2 (2.7)
2
where 𝐿 is the inductance of the superconducting coil and 𝑖 is the current of the coil. This is the basic
equation we all have learned in elementary physics.

In order to get the conductors in a superconducting state, one has to cool the conductors to extremely low
temperature. So called high temperature (HT) superconductors can be cooled to superconducting state
using liquid nitrogen (–195.8 °C) and the low temperature (LT) ones are typically cooled using liquid helium
(–268.9 °C).

Fig. 2.16. Principle of the superconducting magnet energy storage.

[Link]

25
SMES technology represents the high-tech end of the storage technologies, and it could perhaps be suitable
for some applications where you need extremely fast response and long lifetime. Table summarizes the
strengths and weaknesses of SMES technology.

Table 2.12. Strengths and weaknesses of SMES.

Strengths: Weaknesses:
Very fast response Expensive (high-tech)
Long life High cooling need
2.6 Thermal energy storages
Although electrical energy storage technologies are in the main focus of this course, we will shortly treat
also thermal energy storages in a general context. In the future, electrical and thermal systems will have
more interconnections with each other because of some synergy benefits, and therefore it is useful to think
the electrical and thermal energy systems as parts of a single holistic energy system. Considering the need
of heating and “cooling” energy, thermal energy storages will probably have bigger role in the energy
system of the future. The idea in thermal energy storages is simply to store thermal energy (for heating or
cooling purposes) to some medium to be used later in some application. There are basically three types of
thermal energy storages: sensible heat storages, latent heat storages and thermochemical heat storage
systems.

The principle of sensible heat storage system is very simple. The idea is to have some medium, like water,
and when the storage is “charged” or “discharged”, the temperature of the medium changes. A very
common example of a sensible heat storage is a storage water heater, which can be found in most of the
detached houses in Finland. There are also large scale water tank type sensible heat storage systems in
commercial use storing heat or cool for district heating and for district cooling.

In a latent heat storage, the idea is to store the energy not in the temperature change but as in form of
phase change of the medium. This means that the phase of the medium could change between liquid, solid
and gaseous. As we have learned from thermodynamics, changing the phase requires or releases of energy.
The medium used to store the energy in latent heat storages is called phase changing material (PCM). There
are e.g. organic (paraffins) and inorganic PCMs (salt hydrates) available for such storage systems [IEC11].
Many PCMs use today the change between solid and liquid phases such as in molten salts in concentrated
solar power plants. In such as plant, there is a large number of mirrors or reflectors which concentrate the
sunlight into receiver(s). The receiver absorbs the heat of the sunlight beams and runs a regular power
plant process using the heat. Using a thermal energy storage in concentrated solar power plant enables
power producing in such a plant also when there is not sunlight present.

Thermochemical heat systems include complex thermally reversible chemical reactions, which store some
energy [IEC11]. These kinds of storages are mostly in research phase at their development.

Thermal storages can be used to support the electrical energy system in many ways. One example of this
is the use of storages in synergy with combined heat and power (CHP) plants. CHP power plants are driven
in accordance of the heating need in the district heating network or industrial process, and certain amount
of the electricity is produced together with the heat. In some situations the electricity need would high
(which can be seen e.g. in form of high price of electricity), and it would be beneficial to be able to produce
electricity more than the heating need would allow. Thermal storage would be good option for this, as the
excess heat could be stored.

26
3 Battery technology
Considering the energy storage technologies, the battery technology is the only one on which we focus
more deeply in this course. And further, our focus is mostly on lithium-ion battery technology, which is
today the dominant choice for electric vehicles and energy applications in general.

In this section, we try to give a battery technology overview suitable for “electrical engineers”. This means
that we are not going to dig into deep rabbit holes of electrochemistry or physics, but our point-of-view is
very practical. The content of this section is based on many sources but mostly on Dr. Kai Vuorilehto’s
lectures and presentations over several years. If a deeper insight into battery technology is needed, one
can read e.g. [Linden11] for general battery technology and [Korthauer18] or [Yuping15] for lithium-ion
batteries. Both books are available as e-books in the university library.

3.1 The very basics of batteries

We all have experience of battery technology. We use batteries, both non-rechargeable and rechargeable
ones, in many electrical appliances. When we were kids, we used toys, like RC cars or giggling dolls, with
non-rechargeable alkaline batteries. You know what I mean: small round Duracell, Panasonic or similar
brand’s cylinder shaped products. Today we also use smart phones, tablets, laptops and increasingly
electric vehicles that use state-of-the-art lithium-ion batteries. The electrochemical battery is a very robust
and practical way to store energy for later use.

In the terminology of battery technology, the non-rechargeable batteries are called primary batteries
(“paristo” in Finnish) and the rechargeable ones are called secondary batteries (“akku” in Finnish). What is
the scientific difference between these two types? It does not exist; there is only a thin line between the
two. In principle, you could recharge many primary batteries (but not perhaps very many times and it may
be dangerous!), but they are not made for recharging. Secondary batteries, e.g. lithium-ion batteries are
optimized for recharging, and you can recharge them for at least hundreds of times.

The basic physical battery unit is called a cell. A cell is a stack of electrochemical and other materials sealed
in a container so that there are two electrical contacts outside the container: positive and negative poles.
Between the poles, there is a DC voltage from which you can draw electrical current and energy. The
electrical energy is produced via electrochemical reactions inside the cell. In a secondary battery, you can
also feed current to the cell and thus recharge the cell. In this case, electrical energy fed to the cell is stored
as electrochemical energy inside the cell.

3.2 Operational principle of batteries

In general, the operation of a battery is based on reduction and oxidation reactions (commonly called
redox reactions). The reduction reaction allows the component involved gaining electrons and oxidation
reaction allows the component to lose electrons [Díaz-González16]. Engineers and scientists, beginning
with the early pioneers like Alessandro Volta (1745–1827) and Georges Leclanché (1839–1882) have found
ways to use these reactions to store and use electrochemical energy. The idea of battery is to make the
redox reactions happen in a controlled way in such manner that energy can be stored in the battery and
used when needed.

27
To understand the operation of the battery, let us look at Figure 3.1 and the basic components of batteries.
In practice, all batteries, both primary and secondary ones, have the following main components:

 Positive electrode (often called as cathode),

 Negative electrode (often called as anode),
 Electrolyte
 Separator.

Fig. 3.1. Schematic structure of a battery cell during discharge. Electrons are moving from minus to plus
along the external circuit giving electric energy to the light bulb. Simultaneously, positive ions are moving
from minus to plus along the electrolyte through the separator, to keep the charge in balance. Negative
ions would be moving in the opposite direction.

Positive and negative electrodes include the electrochemically active materials, which store the energy in
a battery. When a primary or secondary battery cell is being discharged, the positive electrode is getting
reduced (gaining electrons) and the negative electrode is getting oxidized (losing electrons). In
electrochemistry, the electrode which is getting oxidized is called anode and the one which is getting
reduced is called cathode. When a secondary battery is being recharged, the positive electrode is getting
oxidized (losing electrons) and the negative electrode is getting reduced (gaining electrons) which is vice
versa to discharging. This means that calling negative electrode as “anode” and positive electrode as

28
“cathode” is correct only during discharge. However, in the lithium-ion battery slang, it is very common to
call positive electrode as cathode and negative electrode as anode ignoring whether the battery is being
charged or discharged.

The idea in batteries is that the movement of electrons due to redox reactions is directed into an external
circuit, which is connected between the positive and negative electrodes. Between negative and positive
electrodes there is an electric potential difference (created by the electrode materials), which enables the
movement of electrons, i.e. electric current, in an external circuit. In discharge, electrons flow from the
negative electrode towards the positive electrode and in charging the direction is the opposite. In case of
battery discharge, the external circuit is an electric load, and in case of charging, the external circuit
comprises a current/voltage source, which forces the electrons (with negative charge) to flow from higher
potential to lower potential corresponding to an electric current flow from negative to positive electrode.
This requires energy, and this energy (minus the losses) is stored to the battery.

As can be seen in Fig. 3.1, the positive and negative electrodes are packed close to each other in a battery
cell. To avoid the movement of electrons inside the cell instead of through external circuit, the electrodes
need to be insulated from each other. This is made by putting a separator between the electrodes. In other
words, the separator prevents direct short circuit between the electrodes.

In addition to movement of electrons through external circuit, a very important phenomenon in batteries
is the movement of ions. When electrons are being drawn from one electrode and inserted into the other
electrode, the ions (either positive or negative or both depending on the battery chemistry) start to move
between the electrodes inside the cell in order to balance the charge difference between the electrodes.
The movement of electrons and ions are inseparable phenomena in a battery; there is no one without the
other. To be able to move, the ions need a medium where it is possible for them to move. This medium is
called electrolyte. The electrolyte is typically a liquid, which is absorbed in the pores of the porous positive
electrode, porous negative electrode and the porous separator. This means that the separator prevents
the movement of electrons but allows the ions to flow through. This is possible due to the structure of the
separator that consists of an electronically insulating material with pores (small holes) filled with
electrolyte.

3.3 Battery chemistries

A battery needs two chemicals: one that gets oxidized and one that gets reduced. Thousands of possible
combinations exist. In practice, the choice is limited. Platinum is too expensive, plutonium is too toxic etc.
Many batteries use zinc as negative electrode (cheap, safe, compatible with water). Higher-end batteries
use lithium (lightweight and high-energy, but less safe and incompatible with water). The positive electrode
contains often manganese or nickel oxides. Lead is a special case: it is heavy, toxic and expensive, but most
of the world’s large secondary batteries (e.g. starter batteries of cars) use it both in negative and in positive
electrodes. It gives a rather high voltage, and it is resistant to side reactions. In the following, the most
common battery chemistries are shortly introduced.

3.3.1 Primary batteries

Alkaline batteries, like the Duracell and Panasonic cylindrical batteries that you buy in the grocery store
and use at home in toys, torches etc. The negative electrode is made of zinc, and the positive electrode is
made of manganese dioxide. The electrolyte is potassium hydroxide (KOH → K+ + OH–) dissolved in water.
This is a safe and cheap chemistry.

29
Lithium/ manganese dioxide batteries are used mostly in small electronics. They can have the form of
button cells or small cylindrical cells. The negative electrode is made of lithium metal, and the positive
electrode is made of manganese dioxide. The electrolyte is a lithium (Li+) salt dissolved in an organic (and
flammable) solvent. This chemistry is more expensive and less safe, but a good choice when volume & mass
are limiting factors.

Lithium/ thionyl chloride batteries are the highest-end of primary batteries. They are used in demanding
electronics, including military applications. Their energy per mass is over threefold compared to alkaline
batteries, and they can work at very low temperatures. The negative electrode is made of lithium metal.
The positive active material is a liquid, thionyl chloride (SOCl2), reacting on carbon surface. The electrolyte
is lithium aluminum chloride (LiAlCl4 → Li+ + AlCl4–) dissolved in thionyl chloride. It is exceptional that the
same organic liquid works both as positive reactant and as electrolyte solvent. Due to metallic lithium and
liquid reactant, safety is a problem. Lithium/ thionyl chloride batteries can sometimes be seen even in
demanding consumer applications like long-lasting fire detectors. The battery life is long enough to serve
as long as the detector is in use, so the battery must never be replaced.

3.3.2 Secondary batteries

Lead-acid batteries are used primarily as starter batteries in cars. Additionally, larger energy storages like
reserve power systems for hospitals or telecommunication antennas use lead-acid. The negative electrode
is made of metallic lead, and the positive electrode is made of lead dioxide. The electrolyte is sulfuric acid
(H2SO4 → 2H+ + SO42–) dissolved in water. This is a cheap and safe chemistry, unless it is overcharged at high
rate which causes hydrogen generation and an explosion hazard (and unless you drop it on your feet
because it is heavy).

Nickel/ metal hydride batteries are used in many hybrid cars. Additionally, small cylindrical rechargeable
batteries are based on this chemistry. They can be used as replacement for alkaline batteries, as they have
the same voltage range. The negative electrode is made of a special metal alloy that absorbs hydrogen,
and the positive electrode is made of nickel oxyhydroxide. The electrolyte is potassium hydroxide (KOH →
K+ + OH–) dissolved in water.

Lithium-ion batteries are used as secondary batteries everywhere, when volume or mass are critical. The
negative electrode is mostly made of graphitic carbon, and the positive electrode is made of a cobalt based
oxide or iron phosphate. The electrolyte is lithium hexafluorophosphate (LiPF6 = Li+ + PF6–) dissolved in an
organic (and flammable) solvent. This is not a completely safe chemistry, but its other properties are very
competitive. Mass production has made the price affordable.

Table 3.1. Specific energies of some primary and secondary batteries.

Battery chemistry Specific energy
PRIMARY BATTERIES:
Alkaline 145 Wh/kg
Lithium/ manganese dioxide 250 Wh/kg
Lithium/ thionyl chloride 500 Wh/kg
SECONDARY BATTERIES
Lead-acid 35 Wh/kg
Nickel/ metal hydride 100 Wh/kg
Lithium-ion 200 Wh/kg

30
3.4 Battery geometries
Batteries look very different, although the chemical reaction inside the cell may be the same. Some battery
cells are cylindrical, some look like plastic boxes, some like coffee packs. The basic geometries are the
following:

 Button cells
 Cylindrical cells
 Prismatic cells & pouch cells
 Special geometries
 Flow cells

Button cells (Figure 3.2) are used in small electrical appliances and/or appliances that require only very
little power. Typical such an appliance is a wristwatch. Button construction is mostly used in primary
batteries.

Fig. 3.2. Structure of a primary button cell. The negative electrode could be zinc and the positive electrode
manganese dioxide or silver oxide. The separator would be some kind of porous paper and the electrolyte
would be potassium hydroxide dissolved in water.

In a cylindrical cell, the idea is to place the electrodes and separator (with the electrolyte) as overlapping
layers in a cylindrical form. There are different types of cylindrical cell structures. Geometrically the
simplest one is the bobbin type, which is depicted in Fig. 3.3. Another important version is the jellyroll (or
Swiss roll or toilet paper roll), shown in Figure 3.4. In a jellyroll, you roughly place thin and flexible sheets
of positive electrode, negative electrode and separators in a stack, and roll it as if you were baking a jellyroll
(“kääretorttu” in Finnish). Familiar cylindrical cell sizes are for example AA, AAA, C and D in alkaline
batteries. Alkaline batteries are built as bobbin cells to save cost. Another very common example of a
cylindrical cell is a 18650 lithium-ion cell. The coding 18650 means that the diameter and the length of the
cylinder are 18 mm and 65 mm, respectively. The lithium-ion cells are of jellyroll type, to keep the electrode
layers thin. These lithium-ion cells can be found e.g. in laptop computers. Slightly larger, cylindrical 21700
lithium-ion cells are used in Tesla cars.

31
 Fig. 3.3. Cylindrical bobbin type cell.

Fig. 3.4. Cylindrical jellyroll type cell. Courtesy of Antti Supponen, Tampere University of Technology.

Prismatic cells. Prismatic roughly means a rectangular or “box-like” form. This means that you have same
materials as in a cylindrical jellyroll type cell but you pack them in a rectangular box instead of a cylinder.
Traditional cars have prismatic lead-acid starter batteries, packed in a plastic box. Some electric vehicles
like Volkswagen e-Golf have prismatic lithium-ion cells, packed in aluminum boxes. Inside many of the
prismatic lithium-ion cells, the electrodes are in elliptical form (Figure 3.5), which is made by winding like
the jellyroll, but the cross section of the roll is elliptical (like a toilet paper roll on which someone has
jumped), instead of round.

32
 Fig. 3.5. Prismatic cell with elliptical inner structure.

Pouch cells are in fact a sub-type of prismatic cells. The difference is that the cell is not packed in a rigid
box, but in flexible aluminum/plastic laminate foil. The foil is similar to the foil used in a coffee pack.
Skipping the metallic box saves mass and money, but the resulting cell loses in mechanical strength.
Modern smart phones tend to have pouch cells, as does the Nissan Leaf electric vehicle. The electrodes of
a pouch cell are mostly stacked (like a pack of cards), instead of wound.

Special geometries. This can mean various non-regular structures. A flexible cell that is designed to be
inside a credit card can be only 0.4mm thick. A hydrogen battery designed for a satellite can have the form
of a gas tank. In space and military applications, money is usually not limiting, so engineers can use their
skills and imagination more freely compared to commercial applications with limited budgets.

Flow cells are receiving attention for Energy Storage Systems (ESS) of electricity grids. When electricity is
produced more than consumed, for example in a wind turbine park on a windy day, the surplus energy
should be stored in batteries for later use. The specific energy (Wh/kg) is not important, as the battery is
not moved. Instead, the price (€/kWh) and cycle life become extremely important, as the amount of stored
energy is large, and the investment cost high. In a flow cell system, the active chemicals (typically
zinc/bromine or vanadium/vanadium) are aqueous solutions that are stored in large tanks. When the
battery is discharged or charged, the liquids are pumped into reaction cells. Theoretically, this is a
promising solution, but so far, flow cells have not been a commercial success.

33
 Fig. 3.6. Structure of a pouch cell. The electrodes and separators are stacked. In a thin pouch cell there
can be only one pair of electrodes, in a thick pouch cells there can be up to 40 pairs. Courtesy of Antti
Supponen, Tampere University of Technology.

3.5 Battery properties

A battery salesman tells the customer that his battery is the best battery. However, such a general best
battery does not exist. For each application, there is a different optimum battery. The responsible engineer
must know the most important battery features for his device when ordering batteries. The needs of a
satellite differ from the needs of a toy.

Following properties must be considered for both primary and secondary batteries:

a) Cell voltage (V). One battery cell can give a voltage of e.g. 1.5V (alkaline batteries), 2V (lead-acid
secondary batteries), 3V (lithium/ manganese dioxide primary batteries) or 3.7V (cobalt based lithium-ion
secondary batteries). A higher cell voltage means smaller number of cells in an application, and less series
connections. This increases simplicity and decreases cost. Some voltage curves are shown in Figure 3.7.

34
 Fig. 3.7. Voltage curves of some primary battery cells. The highest voltage is given by the lithium/thionyl
choride (Li/SOCl2) cell. The alkaline Zn/MnO2 cell is cheap and safe, but its voltage is very low. Normally, 2-
4 alkaline cells are connected in series to reach the needed voltage.

b) Specific energy (Wh/kg). In mobile applications, like electric vehicles, energy should be maximized and
mass minimized. Lead-acid batteries tend to have low specific energy, as lead is heavy. Even the best
engineer cannot change this fact.

c) Energy density (Wh/liter). In commercial electric cars, the volume of the battery may be even more
critical than the mass. Clever packing can influence the volume, more than the mass.

d) Specific power (W/kg). In power tools and hybrid vehicles, power may be more important than energy.

e) Power density (W/liter). In power tools and hybrid vehicles, power may be more important than energy.
Volume of the battery may be critical here, too.

f) Minimum temperature (°C). Low temperature slows down the speed of chemical reactions. If the
electrochemical reactions that produce electricity get too slow, the battery cannot deliver enough current.
Typically, batteries work badly below 0°C and miserably below -20°C. However, some lithium/thionyl
chloride batteries work well down to -60°C.

g) Maximum temperature (°C). High temperature speeds up the electrochemical reactions. Unfortunately,
also the side reactions that corrode battery components get faster. Maximum allowed temperature is
typically +40 to +60°C.

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h) Voltage profile (∆V). When the battery is discharged, its voltage decreases. The decrease can be large
and continuous (e.g. alkaline primary batteries), see Figure 3.7. In some batteries, the voltage decreases
extremely slowly, until it drops abruptly near the end (e.g. lithium/thionyl chloride batteries). Slow
decrease is advantageous for the electronics, as input voltage stays almost constant. On the other hand, a
larger continuous decrease makes it easier to foresee when the battery is getting empty and must be
replaced or recharged.

i) Shelf life (years). All batteries are slowly deteriorated by side reactions when stored before use. Good
quality lithium primary batteries can be stored for 15 years, low-quality batteries just for 1-2 years. The
best storage temperature is typically low, 10-20°C, as low temperature slows down the side reactions.

j) Cost (€ or €/kWh or €/W). Everybody wants to save money. A simple customer may buy the cheapest
and lowest-quality battery, winning in € but losing in €/kWh. In high power applications, €/W may be more
important than €/kWh.

k) Safety. Zero risk does not exist. “For every idiot-proof system, there is an improved idiot.” Primary
batteries are generally less risky than secondary batteries (unless one tries to charge the primary battery).
Batteries including lithium tend to be more risky than others. Lithium fire cannot be extinguished with
water, as lithium reacts with water, producing hydrogen that burns even more violently. Generally, cheap
batteries may have lower quality and involve higher risk.

Following properties must be considered for secondary batteries only:

l) Cycle life (cycles). One charge plus following discharge is called a cycle. Each cycle slightly deteriorates
the battery. The cycle life varies according to chemistry and production quality. For lithium-ion batteries,
cycle life is typically 2000 cycles. However, cycle lives between 500-10,000 are normal.

m) Calendar life (years). A secondary battery ages even if it is not cycled. Side reactions slowly deteriorate
the battery. The calendar life of a lithium-ion battery may be around 10 years.

n) Self discharge (%/month). Batteries tend to discharge by themselves even when not in use. In lithium-
ion batteries this self-discharge is very slow, less than 2%/month.

o) Charging time (hours). When a battery is charged, the chemical reactions have a limited speed. Higher
charge voltage does not considerably speed up the charging; it just deteriorates the battery, with risk of
fire. A lead-acid battery needs about 8 hours charging time, a lithium-ion battery only about 1 hour.

p) Energy efficiency (%). Most of the electric energy consumed in charging a battery can be later regained
when discharging the battery. However, some energy is always lost, causing heat evolution. In a lead-acid
battery, the energy efficiency is around 80%, in a lithium-ion battery around 95%.

3.6 Lithium-ion batteries

It has been known for decades that lithium would be the ultimate material for negative electrodes. It is
very electropositive and lightweight, giving high voltage (V) and high specific energy (Wh/kg). As lithium is
incompatible with water, organic electrolytes must be used. The flammable organic electrolyte, together
with the flammable lithium metal, has been a safety challenge, but especially the small cells are safe
enough for customer use. Primary lithium (metal) batteries have been on the market since 1970’s.

36
Secondary lithium (metal) batteries were brought on the market in 1980’s, but they failed tragically.
Lithium metal can be easily discharged (dissolved to lithium ions), but during recharge, lithium tends to
form sharp metallic structures, dendrites. These dendrites occasionally built bridges through the separator
to the positive electrode, causing short-circuit and fire.

Finally, in 1991, the Japanese company Sony started selling lithium-ion batteries where lithium stays in
ionic form all the time. This was a real break-through in the secondary battery market.

3.6.1 Basic principle of the lithium-ion battery

The working principle of the lithium ion battery is simple: Lithium ions Li+ shuttle between the negative and
the positive electrodes. When the battery is charged, lithium ions are forced into the negative electrode,
where their energy is high (the ions “do not want to” be there). During discharge, the ions move into the
positive electrode where their energy is low (the ions “want to” be there). The energy difference, minus
losses, goes into the outer electric circuit, and can be used e.g. to move an electric car. Due to this back-
and-forth movement of lithium ions, the lithium-ion battery is sometimes called a “rocking chair battery”
(in Finnish “keinutuoliakku”).

When lithium ions reach the positive or negative materials, they do not stay on the surface of material
particles, but they go deep into the chemical “crystal” structure. This is called intercalation. Coming out
from the structure is called de-intercalation. The ions move and stay inside the electrode host structures,
without really reacting with them. Some changes in the electrode structures do occur, e.g. the volume
changes, but the changes are smaller than in other battery chemistries. Therefore, a lithium-ion battery
can survive thousands of charge-discharge cycles.

3.6.2 Traditional materials of the lithium-ion battery

The main components of the lithium-ion battery are shown in Figure 3.8.

The traditional positive electrode material is lithiated cobalt oxide, LiCoO2. It has a layered structure with
alternating cobalt, oxygen and lithium layers (Figure 3.8, insert on the left). During charge, lithium leaves
the crystal (de-intercalation); during discharge, it returns (intercalation). However, only 50% of the lithium
can be utilized. If more than half of the lithium leaves the crystal, the structure may collapse and liberate
oxygen. This can cause thermal runaway, as oxygen is able to burn the flammable electrolyte.

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 Fig. 3.8. Components of a traditional lithium-ion battery during discharge.

For complete discharge, the reaction at the positive electrode is:

2Li0.5 CoO2 + Li+ + e− → 2LiCoO2.

Thus, for one mole (7g) of active lithium, two moles (189g) of Li0,5CoO2 is needed as host for discharged
lithium.

By far the most common negative electrode material is graphitic carbon. It consists of parallel graphene
layers (Figure 3.8, insert on the right). During charge, lithium is intercalated into graphite, between the
layers. During discharge, lithium leaves the graphite. Unlike cobalt oxide, graphite is stable even without
lithium, so it can be almost completely discharged.

For complete discharge, the reaction at the negative electrode is:

LiC6 → Li+ + e− + 6C.

Thus for one mole (7g) of active lithium, there are six moles (72g) of carbon that acts as host for charged
lithium.

To avoid direct contact and short circuit between the positive and negative electrodes, a microporous
membrane is used as separator. Thinner separators (10-20μm) are used to minimize the resistance; thicker
ones (15-25μm) are used to avoid the risk of short-circuit. In commercial cells, polyethene and polypropene
separators are preferred due to their chemical stability and reasonable price. For maximum safety, some
separators are coated with a protective non-melting and non-burning ceramic layer.

38
The pores of the electrodes and the separator are filled with electrolyte. It is a solution of lithium salt LiPF6
in a mixture of organic solvents. Ethylene carbonate (EC), dimethyl carbonate (DMC), ethyl methyl
carbonate (EMC) and diethyl carbonate (DEC) are the most common organic solvents. Of these, EC is
essential for cell stability as it protects the graphite surface. However, at room temperature it is solid,
preventing the use of pure EC. Typically a ternary mixture of EC and two of the other carbonates is
preferred. As organic electrolytes have a low conductivity, about 10mS/cm, the inter-electrode distance
must be short and therefore the electrodes and the separators are very thin.

Both electrodes include, in addition to the electroactive material, some additives, seen in Figure 3.8 (round
insert on the left). Binders are used to keep the electrode particles together during production and use.
The traditional binder is polyvinylidene difluoride, PVDF. Conducting additives are needed to enhance the
electronic conductivity from the current feeder to all electroactive particles. Carbon black is the traditional
additive but even carbon fibres are used.

3.6.3 Properties of the lithium-ion battery

Lithium-ion batteries are conquering the secondary battery market due to their competitive properties:

+ The cell voltage is high, 3.2-3.7V. This is due to the very electropositive nature of the lithium-graphite
intercalation compound.

+ The specific energy (Wh/kg) and energy density (Wh/liter) are high. Lithium is lightweight and small, but
this is not the main reason, as a lithium-ion battery needs a lot of positive and negative electrode material
as host. Only 1.5-2% of the cell mass is lithium! The main reason is the high voltage, increasing the energy
content of the cell (energy = voltage x capacity; Wh = V x Ah).

+ The specific power (W/kg) and power density (W/liter) are rather high. The low conductivity of the
electrolyte limits the current, but the high voltage saves the game (power = voltage x current; W = V x A).

+ The shelf life is long, a couple of years.

+/– The temperature limits, typically –20°C – +60°C are similar to those of other secondary batteries.

The main challenges of the traditional lithium-ion battery are safety and cost. As the trend is to build larger
batteries for electric vehicles and other large-scale applications, the importance of safety has grown. A
lithium-ion battery needs control electronics to prevent overcharging, over-discharging, too high currents
etc. This increases complexity and price of a battery system. A burning mobile phone could be tolerated
but a burning car may be fatal. If a lithium-ion battery burns, the fire is next to impossible to extinguish.
Water reacts with lithiated graphite, producing acetylene and hydrogen gasses, and spreading the fire.

The cost issue is similar. Small consumer batteries can easily be afforded, but the battery pack of a full-
electric car is still too expensive to replace the gasoline tank. The lithium-ion battery price is higher
compared to lead-acid batteries but it is continuously dropping due to mass production.

3.6.4 Modern positive electrode materials of the lithium-ion battery

The use of lithiated cobalt oxide (LCO) as positive electrode material is not safe. If it is kept “fully” charged
as Li0.5CoO2, it reacts slowly with the electrolyte thus losing in performance. If it is slightly overcharged,
there is a clear loss in capacity and lifetime. In case of severe overcharge, the cobalt oxide crystal collapses

39
and liberates oxygen which can cause thermal runaway and fire. Overcharge easily happens, as there is no
obvious voltage difference between normal charge and overcharge.

Cobalt oxide is expensive, as cobalt ore is scarce. This problem has become worse due to growing demand.
Last but not least, cobalt is toxic. The main commercial alternatives for cobalt oxide are listed in Table 2.

Table 3.2. Positive electrode materials, and the cell voltage when they are combined with graphite
negative electrode.
Cobalt oxide (traditional) LCO LiCoO2 3.7 V
Nickel-cobalt-aluminum oxide NCA LiNi0.8Co0.15Al0.05O2 3.7 V
Nickel-manganese-cobalt oxide NMC111 LiNi1/3Mn1/3Co1/3O2 3.7 V
NMC532 LiNi0.5Mn0.3Co0.2O2 3.7 V
NMC622 LiNi0.6Mn0.2Co0.2O2 3.7 V
Iron phosphate LFP LiFePO4 3.2 V
Manganese oxide LMO LiMn2O4 3.8 V

NCA is lighter (more specific capacity Ah/kg) than LCO but it is only slightly safer. It is used when the highest
energy density is needed and safety can be compromised.

NMC is safer and cheaper than LCO, but it still includes cobalt and cannot be fully charged. It is used in
most electric vehicles and other applications where high energy density is needed, and moderate safety is
accepted. The original NMC was NMC111 with equal amounts of each three metals. Nowadays, the trend is
to use more nickel, in order to increase capacity and decrease the amount of expensive cobalt.

LFP is very safe and slightly cheaper, but it gives 0.5V lower voltage than cobalt oxide. Therefore, its energy
density is lower. LFP is used when safety is first priority, like in busses and ships.

LMO is safer and very cheap but has a limited lifetime. It is slowly vanishing from the market.

Each of the alternative materials solves some of the problems but they all are compromises. At the
moment, NMC and LFP are the favourites for large-scale batteries. LCO is still used in small lithium-ion
batteries, for example in mobile phones.

3.6.5 Modern negative electrode materials of the lithium-ion battery

Graphite as negative electrode is cheap and lightweight but it is not very safe. On graphite surface, the
lithium intercalation potential is only about 80mV more positive than the lithium metal deposition
potential. Even a small design failure or charging error causes deposition of metallic lithium on the
electrode surface. Small amounts of metallic lithium increase the reactivity of the graphite surface, thus
consuming electrolyte in side reactions. Large amounts of lithium metal can grow as metallic peaks,
“dendrites” that short circuit the negative and positive electrodes. This may cause excess heating and ignite
the electrolyte, resulting in a fire.

Some commercial alternatives for graphite do exist.

Soft and hard carbons are sometimes used due to their slightly more positive intercalation potentials. This
means less risk of lithium metal deposition and a possibility of faster charging. However, the energy density
is considerably lower with these materials. More popular is amorphous carbon coating on normal graphite.
It allows faster charging without sacrificing energy.

40
Lithium titanate (LTO) is a very safe negative electrode material with an amazingly long lifetime. On lithium
titanate surface, the lithium intercalation potential is 1550mV more positive than the lithium metal
deposition potential, making lithium metal (dendrite) deposition almost impossible (see Figure 3.9).
However, the 1.4 volts lower cell voltage limits the use of lithium titanate to very few applications.

Silicon/graphite composite is the newest commercial alternative. Silicon would give a formidable energy
density, but its stability is miserable. When only a few per cent of silicon is added to graphite to build a
composite, the energy density increases moderately, with the cost of limiting the cycle life to about 500
cycles.

Graphite is cheap and lightweight, especially when compared to cobalt oxide. A real alternative is not in
sight. Therefore, it can be expected that graphite retains its position as standard negative electrode
material in the near future, often with a carbon coating, sometimes as composite.

3.6.6 Solid-electrolyte-interface, SEI

Each electrolyte has a potential range where it is stable. If the electrode potential of the positive electrode
is too positive, it oxidises the electrolyte. If the potential of the negative electrode is too negative, it reduces
the electrolyte. Both of these side reactions consume electrolyte and decrease the capacity of the cell. The
potential range where none of these side reactions take place is called the electrolyte stability window.

Lithium in graphite (=lithiated graphite) tends to deteriorate the common lithium-ion electrolytes. This is
because the potential of lithiated graphite is far outside the stability window of the common electrolytes,
as seen in Figure 3.9. Fortunately, during the first charge of the battery, graphite reacts with the electrolyte,
building a protective layer on the graphite surface. This solid electrolyte interface (SEI) layer should
prevent further side reactions. Never the less, some side reactions take place throughout the lifetime of
the battery, reducing its cyclic and calendar life.

Fig. 3.9. The potential range of electrolyte stability, compared with the potentials of common electrode
materials. Absolute electrochemical potentials can never be measured; therefore, the potential of lithium
metal is defined as 0.0V, and the other potentials are compared with lithium. Cell voltage can be
calculated from the potential difference of electrodes. For example, a lithium cobalt oxide / graphite cell
has a voltage of 3.9V - 0.2V = 3.7V.

41
3.6.7 Safety of lithium-ion batteries
Production, transport and usage of lithium-ion batteries always involve a safety risk. The risk cannot be
completely avoided, but it can be minimized. Responsible handling of the safety issue has five levels:

1) Chemistry. In a standard lithium-ion cell (e.g. cobalt oxide / graphite), the positive electrode, the
negative electrode and the electrolyte are all sources of risk. The positive electrode can collapse due to
overcharge, the negative electrode can cause lithium metal plating, and the electrolyte is flammable. For
safety critical applications like airplanes or ships, one should preferably choose a lithium-ion chemistry
where at least one of these components is safe. This could mean a battery with iron phosphate (LFP)
positive electrode or titanate (LTO) negative electrode. Due to lower voltage, they both deliver less energy
(Wh/kg and Wh/liter) compared to competitors, but they may ensure a longer lifetime for the users.

2) Cell design. When designing a safe battery system, the engineer should consider what kind of cells are
used. Should they be small or large, of cylindrical, prismatic or pouch geometry, with steel or aluminium
can?

In case of cell failure and fire, a small cell produces less heat than a large cell. If a battery with many small
cells is well designed, the fire can be restricted to one cell preventing the burning of a whole battery. This
is the Tesla strategy: thousands of small cells are relatively safe although the high-energy chemistry (NCA
/ silicon-graphite) is not safe. In a battery of fever but larger cells, this fire restriction is very difficult or even
impossible. One big burning cell ignites all its neighbours.

If the battery needs mechanical strength due to vibration or shock, cylindrical format is the safest. It is
difficult to deform a cylinder. This is why space applications mostly prefer cylindrical cells. A pouch cell has
hardly any mechanical strength, but it can be safe enough if it has external mechanical protection, like
inside a mobile phone or laptop computer.

A steel can (cylinder or box) is heavier than an aluminum can, but regarding fire safety, it has the advantage
of a high melting point, about 1500°C. Aluminum melts at 660°C, which is less than the typical temperature
of lithium-ion battery fire. A steel can retards a fire by staying intact, whereas an aluminium can melts and
lets the fire spread further.

3) Production technology. Production of lithium-ion cells does not take place in a garage. It is high-tech
industry, needing high–quality equipment and environment. Stringent dust control is necessary, as even
small metal or carbon particles can cause short circuits in a cell. Additionally, video and X-ray control is
often used, as misalignment of electrodes, wrinkles in electrodes, and pinholes in separators cause short-
circuit. Large customers usually make quality audits in cell factories.

4) Battery Management System (BMS). A lithium-ion cell must not be over-charged or over-discharged;
the current must not be too high, and it must not be used outside its temperature limits. To control these
safety issues, the battery must be equipped with management electronics, called “battery management
system”.

5) Preparation for the worst case. Even the best battery can fail, for example due to a car crash. For this
kind of worst case, cells often have mechanical safety features like a safety vent (against over-pressure), a
current-interrupt-device, CID (against too high current) and a positive-temperature-coefficient-device, PTC
(against too high temperature). These are inactive during normal use, but should prevent major damage
to the user and environment, if everything else fails.

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3.6.8 Production of lithium-ion cells
Lithium-ion cells are produced in highly automated factories, having dry rooms and high-tech machinery.
The production process is described in the following:

Fig. 3.10. Production of lithium-ion cells, step-by-step.

1) Mixing. The active electrode material (e.g. lithium cobalt oxide) is mixed together with binder,
conducting additive and solvent to get a wet paste called “slurry”.

2) Coating. The slurry is coated as thin layers on both sides of the current feeder (aluminum or copper).
The resulting electrode goes into a long (30-50m) oven to evaporate the solvent. The thickness of the
electrode coating is 25-100μm per side, with a tolerance of 1-3μm.

3) Calendaring. The electrode is pressed with large rolls to increase the density and decrease the porosity.
Calendaring ensures good particle-to-particle contacts and particle-to-current-collector contacts. As high
pressure is needed, a calendar has a mass of 10-30 tons.

4) Slitting. The pressed electrode is cut to right width with a slitting machine. Precision is about 0.5mm.

5) Vacuum drying. Last residues of solvent and humidity are dried out from the electrode.

6) Assembly. The positive and negative electrodes, together with two layers of separator are wound in a
winder to a jellyroll, or cut and stacked to a “pack of cards”. The jellyroll or pack is then placed in a
cylindrical/prismatic can or in a pouch, depending on cell design.

7) Filling. Liquid electrolyte is filled into the cell under vacuum.

8) Soaking. The cell is waiting that the electrolyte finds its way into all small pores of the electrodes.

43
9) Formation. The cell is slowly charged and discharged 1-3 times. During this process, the protecting layer
on graphite surface (solid-electrolyte-interface, SEI) is built.

10) Aging. The cell is waiting for 1-3 weeks for the SEI to get stronger. If there is a soft short (very small
short-circuit) in the cell, it gets discharged during this time.

11) Grading. The discharged soft short cells are sorted out. Other cells are graded according to quality
(capacity and internal resistance).

As lithium-ion cells are completely incompatible with water, the steps 6-7 take place in a clean/dry room
of less than 1% humidity.

Due to stringent production requirements, the investment cost of a small lithium-ion battery factory is
high, 10–100 M€. A medium sized factory needs an investment of 100–1000M€. A gigafactory costs billions
of euros. In the production of standard lithium-ion cells, only a gigafactory can compete economically.

3.6.9 Choosing the right lithium-ion cells

For an engineer, it is not enough to decide that lithium-ion cells are used. One needs to decide what kind
of lithium-ion cells are used. The decision depends on the electricity needs of the application, but available
money and willingness to take risks play their role, too.

Energy, power of safety through chemistry?

A lithium-ion cell can be designed/optimised for maximum energy or maximum power. If energy (Wh/kg
or Wh/liter) is first priority, one may choose a chemistry that maximises the voltage (V) and the capacity
(Ah). This could be a cell with NCA as positive electrode and silicon-graphite composite as negative
electrode. However, this energy comes with a cost. Safety and cycle life are compromised. If safety is first
priority, LFP/graphite may be a better choice, although 20-30% of energy is lost due to lower voltage.

If power (W/kg or W/liter) is first priority, one may choose a chemistry that reacts fast. LFP positive
electrode material is available in smaller powder size than its competitors (due to good stability and safety),
giving higher surface area and faster reactions. The lithium titanate negative electrode has similar
properties. Therefore, LFP/graphite and NMC/titanate are common power cell chemistries. LFP/titanate
would theoretically be the ultimate choice for power and safety, but its voltage 1.85V (see Figure 3.8) is
too low for most applications.

As a compromise between energy, power and safety, NMC/graphite is very popular. It has medium energy,
medium power and medium safety, and it is nowadays the most produced chemistry, keeping the price
reasonable.

Energy or power design?

Not only the chemistry choice influences energy and power, but the inner design of the cell is equally
important. In fact, most of the chemistries exist in both energy and power versions. One should remember
that only the electrochemically active electrode materials store energy. Inactive materials like separator,
electrolyte, current feeders, binders and conductive additives do not store energy. In an energy cell, the
amount of inactive components must be minimised. In a power cell, fast reactions and minimum resistance
are more important.

44
In an energy cell:

- The layers of electroactive materials (e.g. cobalt oxide and graphite) on the current feeders are
thicker. This way, there are more electroactive materials and less copper & aluminium current feeders
in the cell.
- The electrodes are calendared (densified) with maximum force to maximize the amount of
electroactive material per volume.
- The amount of conducting additives like carbon black is minimized to save space for active materials.
Maximum conductivity is not needed, as the currents are lower.
- The particle size of the electroactive materials is bigger, in order to decrease their surface area. Less
surface area slows down the unwanted side reactions, increasing the lifetime of the cell especially at
elevated temperatures.

In a power cell:

- The layers of electroactive materials (e.g. cobalt oxide and graphite) on the current feeders are
thinner. This minimizes the distance that electrons and ions must move inside the electrode, and
therefore minimizes the ohmic voltage losses at high currents.
- The electrodes are calendared (densified) with less force to allow more porosity and more electrolyte
inside the electrode. More electrolyte gives better ionic conductivity and less ohmic voltage losses at
high currents.
- The amount of conducting additives like carbon black is high in order to increase the electronic
conductivity and minimize the ohmic voltage losses at high currents.
- -The particle size of the electroactive materials is smaller, in order to increase their surface area and
make the electrochemical reactions faster.

Geometry
In large scale, lithium-ion cells are produced in three basic geometries: cylindrical, prismatic and pouch.

Cylindrical cells have the advantage of easy roll-to-roll production. The central machine of the assembly
process, the winder, takes in two electrode rolls and two separator rolls, and winds them together to
jellyrolls. Winding of one jellyroll takes only a few seconds. The second advantage is robustness. A cylinder
is very tolerant against all mechanical damages. Globally the most popular lithium-ion cell is the cylindrical
18650 cell, having 18mm diameter and 65mm height. It has the lowest price in €/kWh, due to fast assembly
and economics of scale. During the last years, the 21700 cell (21mm diameter and 70mm height) has
increased in popularity. These small cylindrical cells are mostly used in applications where price is first
priority. Large cylindrical cells are used for other reasons: in aerospace and military applications,
mechanical strength of the cylindrical form is extremely important.

Prismatic cells are easy-to-fit. Due to the slim design, it is easy to find a suitable place for a prismatic cell
inside a mobile phone or laptop. Many of the first electric cars had prismatic cells, as it is easy to place large
amounts of prismatic cells close to each other, inside a box-like volume, for example in the trunk of the car
(see Figure 3.11). Efficient production of prismatic cells is much more complicated: winding of elliptical
“jellyrolls” is a slow and difficult process. An additional problem is the lack of stack pressure; the large
planar walls of the rectangular box do not stay planar when the pressure inside the cell increases.

45
 Fig. 3.11. Comparison of the three basic geometries when many cells are connected together. Between
cylindrical cells, there is empty volume, a) 9% or b) 21%. Between prismatic cells, there is c) almost no
empty volume, but inside the prismatic cells, there is d) empty volume in the corners. When using pouch
cells, there is e) empty volume near the edges. Additional volume f) is occupied by aluminum plates for
heat transport and structures protecting the fragile pouch cells against mechanical damage.

Pouch cells are lightweight. Inside a pouch cell, the electrodes are stacked (like a pack of cards) instead of
being a cylindrical or elliptical jellyroll. The stacking process with pick-and-place of single electrodes is even
slower and more difficult than winding of elliptical jellyrolls. Inside the pouch (coffee pack material), there
is vacuum, so the atmospheric pressure presses the electrodes well together. However, lithium-ion cells
tend to produce some gas (e.g. methane from electrolyte side reaction on graphite) during prolonged use.
If the pressure of this gas becomes higher than the atmospheric pressure, the cell loses its mechanical
rigidity. An additional problem is the heat transport of the cells. A metal cylinder or box can transport heat
rather well, but the pouch material does not transport heat. Therefore, aluminum plates are often placed
between the cells to enhance heat transport.

Brand, price and quality

Production of lithium-ion cells is tough business. Most companies make loss. Practically all American and
European players have given up, and even the original lithium-ion-company, Sony, has sold its business.
Economics-of-scale rules in lithium-ion business, giving small newcomers practically no chance.

The “big three” ruling most of the global market are the Japanese company Panasonic (including Panasonic
production inside Tesla-gigafactory) and the Korean companies LG and Samsung. Lately, some large
Chinese companies like CATL and Lishen have reached “western” quality standards and are now entering
the global market with force. Other companies in Korea, Japan, Europe and America are more or less in
trouble due to the sinking prices of the “big three”. They can only compete in more expensive niche
markets. Smaller Chinese companies can compete with the price, but at the cost of quality.

46
When purchasing lithium-ion cells, it is difficult for the buyer to know which cells are reliable and which
are not. Specification sheets are often full of wishful thinking, so thorough testing is a must. Simple testing
(energy, capacity, average voltage, short cycling) takes a few months, but good testing (including cycle life
and calendar life) takes about one year.

When buying cells of a well-known brand, the quality risk is smaller, as the owners of the brand mostly do
not want to jeopardise the brand’s reputation. When buying from unknown companies, special care must
be taken with testing. Especially, when price is “too good to be true”, and the unknown producer is located
outside international jurisdiction, one should keep the hands off. Buying of the well-known brands mostly
saves money and trouble. One cannot buy a Mercedes-Benz for the price of a Renault.

3.7 Battery management systems (BMS) and battery pack design

This section will introduce you to the basic concepts of battery pack design and battery management
systems. Key target is again not to go too deep to the design criterions and concepts themselves, but to
familiarize the reader into the basic terminology and design consideration that revolve around the battery
system design. In this section, we focus exclusively on Li-ion battery system, but the basic concepts
described here are applicable to most of the electrochemical battery systems.

In the first part of this section, we examine the basic calculations associated with battery pack design that
is the calculation of the pack voltage, voltage limits, pack and cell currents and losses. The second part is
focused around the control electronics and intelligence related to the battery system, that is, the battery
management system (BMS). The BMS system functionalities and some design philosophies are shortly
described in this section.

3.7.1 Basic battery pack design

The principal design of the battery packs can vary significantly. At its most simple form the battery pack
can be just a few of cylindrical cells connected in series or in parallel and enclosed in a plastic shell. Such is
a case, for example, in a simple power tool battery (see Fig. 3.12). Conversely, the battery back can also be
a size of a shipping container, housing multiple battery modules and sub-modules. Regardless the size and
intended use, the basics of the pack design, and the laws of physics governing them, remain the same.

Fig. 3.12. Example of a commercial power tool battery pack. Figure:

[Link]

Every system at its base is composed of cells, which is a single enclosed anode cathode pair (see Section
3.1). By connecting a desired amount of cells in series and parallel configuration, a battery pack of desired
specifications is made. Often the battery pack is designed for a certain purpose, which defines the
specifications of the design. That is, battery pack is made to meet demand, not vice versa. The specifics of

47
the design vary depending on the application. For example, the instantaneous power supplied by the pack
may in some cases be more important than the capacity of the system.

The construction of a battery system of reasonable size if often modular. This enables scalable production
and utilization of standard solutions in customized systems. There is myriads of literature concerning the
benefits and virtues of modular system design, but these are out-of-scope for this course.

Voltage, Current, Capacity and Power

Principal purpose of the battery is to store energy, and the capability to store energy is quantified with
capacity. The capacity of the battery may be expressed as current capacity (usually Ah or mAh) or directly
as energy capacity (J or Wh). When we consider the capacity of the whole system, we can easily conclude
that:
𝐶𝐴ℎ,𝑝𝑎𝑐𝑘 = 𝐶𝐴ℎ,𝑐𝑒𝑙𝑙 × 𝑛𝑝𝑎𝑟𝑎𝑙𝑙𝑒𝑙 𝑐𝑒𝑙𝑙𝑠

𝐶𝑊ℎ,𝑝𝑎𝑐𝑘 = 𝐶𝐴ℎ,𝑝𝑎𝑐𝑘 × 𝑉𝑝𝑎𝑐𝑘

The voltage range of the battery is often limited by the desired application (e.g. the input voltage of the
fed equipment). For a battery pack comprised of series connected cells we can say that:

𝑉𝑝𝑎𝑐𝑘 = 𝑉𝑐𝑒𝑙𝑙 × 𝑛𝑠𝑒𝑟𝑖𝑒𝑠 𝑐𝑒𝑙𝑙𝑠

Analogous to this, we can also consider the current trough the battery pack, assuming even distribution of
current through the parallel connected cells:

𝐼𝑝𝑎𝑐𝑘 = 𝐼𝑐𝑒𝑙𝑙 × 𝑛𝑝𝑎𝑟𝑎𝑙𝑙𝑒𝑙 𝑐𝑒𝑙𝑙𝑠

And finally, we can write for the power supplied by the pack:

𝑃𝑝𝑎𝑐𝑘 = 𝑉𝑝𝑎𝑐𝑘 × 𝐼𝑝𝑎𝑐𝑘

The cell losses are relational to the current and DC resistance of the cell, this loss is important to consider
when designing the enclosure and possibly active cooling system of the battery. The total losses of the
system can be calculated by the number of cells in the system.

2
𝑃𝑙𝑜𝑠𝑠,𝑐𝑒𝑙𝑙 = 𝑅𝐷𝐶,𝑐𝑒𝑙𝑙 × 𝐼𝑐𝑒𝑙𝑙

𝑃𝑙𝑜𝑠𝑠,𝑝𝑎𝑐𝑘 = 𝑃𝑙𝑜𝑠𝑠,𝑐𝑒𝑙𝑙 × 𝑛𝑠𝑒𝑟𝑖𝑒𝑠 𝑐𝑒𝑙𝑙𝑠 × 𝑛𝑝𝑎𝑟𝑎𝑙𝑙𝑒𝑙 𝑐𝑒𝑙𝑙𝑠

3.7.2 BMS functionalities

To begin with a quote. What is the purpose of BMS?

“The Battery Management System (BMS), while it may have many other names, is the
central control unit of the battery pack. It is essentially (and quite literally) the “brains” of
the operation.”

- Warner, J. “Handbook of Lithium-Ion Battery Back Design”

The quote, albeit being simple, accurately describes the role of BMS in any battery system: it is a system
built by sole purpose to monitor, maintain and control the usage of any secondary battery system and
ensure its safe and economic operation. By principle, any system that is designed to monitor and control

48
the battery system could be considered to be battery management system, for example the voltage
regulator of the alternator in a car is in essence the BMS of the 12 V Lead-acid battery. However, often in
this context the BMS is considered to be the system especially built for the battery pack in question, often
controlled by a microcontroller.

In literature, there remains some ambiguity on what actually is the battery management system. Some
consider that the BMS is limited to the control and monitoring hardware (e.g. microcontroller and A/D
converters for measurement), and some extend the concept to also cover the actuators of the battery pack
itself, like protection relays, cooling fans, and the like. The line on which parts of the battery pack hardware
are BMS and which are not is often blurry.

Voltage protection
In order to safely operate a Li-ion battery, the cell voltages of individual battery cells must stay within a
specified voltage band. Overcharging and overdischarging may result in unwanted or even dangerous
phenomena. Overcharged cells cause fire hazards and overdischarged cells are often irreversibly damaged,
which can drastically reduce battery system lifetime. In multicell battery system, each series connected cell
array must be individually monitored.

Fig. 3.13. Example: Voltage-capacity curve of LFP 300HES battery module.

Overcurrent protection
Overcurrent protection of a battery system is closely related to the over temperature protection. Too much
current causes too much heating and too much heating causes operational failure on the battery cells. For
example, elevated operational temperatures cause degradation of the SEI layer (see Section 3.6.6), which
in turn over time causes capacity fading.

It is evident that the current of the battery system needs to be monitored. Again, the specifics of the current
measurement are application specific. In some (simple) cases, the actual current monitoring is not
required, if the operational bound of the application are well known. For example, in an application in
which the discharge current of the battery system is known to be only a fraction of allowable current, the
current measurement from BMS perspective may be omitted. One such case is portable LED lights, in which
the current of the application is extremely small in comparison to the capacity of the cell.

49
The simplest form of current measurement if shunt resistor. In this measurement setup a resistor with well
known (and preferably low) resistance is connected in series into the measured circuit branch. With the
resistance known and the voltage across the shunt measured, the current trough the circuit branch is easily
deduced.

State of Charge (SOC) and State of Health (SOH) estimation

State of charge estimation is one of the less safety critical features of the BMS, yet still important. Although
conceptually simple thing (how much energy is there in the battery), SOC estimation involves often quite
complex algorithms. Depending on the chemistry, the estimation may be as simple as reading the terminal
voltage of the battery pack and equating that to a known SOC level, or it may involve integrative current
measurement.

State of Health estimation on the other hand is little bit more safety critical. State of Health quantifies the
available useful life of the battery system, and it is important information on determining when the battery
has degraded so much that its continued operation may cause safety hazards. The SOH analysis may be
based on, for example, cycle counting, loss of capacity calculation, operational hours counting.

The exact algorithms and their implementations for SOC and SOH analysis are quite beyond the scope of
this course. It should be noted that manufactures often consider these algorithms as their core intellectual
property (IP) and are often unwilling on sharing them.

Balancing
“Balancing”, in the context of battery systems, refers to reducing the internal charge imbalance in a
multicell battery system. The main reason for imbalance to exist in a battery system in the first place is the
miniscule differences in the cell construction, which over several charging cycles introduce, for example,
higher loss of energy on the cell with highest internal resistance. Over time this leads to a situation where
cell states of charge are no longer even, which in turn lead to diminished apparent capacity of the whole
system. This is illustrated in the Fig. 3.14.

Charged:

Discharged:

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 Fig. 3.14. Concept of imbalance.

How the imbalance can be reduced then? The simplest solution of course is to remove the excess capacity
from the cells. This is called passive balancing. Basically, the excess capacity is dissipated into heat with
external resistors, as illustrated in the picture below. Each cell in the system, in this case, would have a
parallel resistor with BMS controlled switch (e.g. MOSFET). When considering the case in the picture above,
the passive balancing would be utilized so that the first two cells would be discharged to the same SOC as
the third cell. The basic principle of passive balancing circuit is illustrated in the Fig. 3.15.

Fig. 3.15. Passive balancing circuits.

Although simple and effective the passive balancing has two significant drawbacks. First, the energy
dissipated is essentially wasted, so in overall the balancing reduces the efficiency of the system. Second,
the operation of the system is limited always by the weakest cell in the array. If again considering the
example case, the one cell in the system of three would have significantly lower capacity that the other
two, the usable capacity would still be dictated by this cell, the excess capacity on the two better cells
would in essence be wasted.

A solution to the problem however exists: active balancing. In this type of balancing the excess energy in
cells would be injected into the weaker cells in the system. This would be done, for example, by small DC-
DC converter connecter in parallel with the cells and from the output side connected in common bus bar.
This kind of topology would essentially enable energy feed within the system from any cell to any other.

Fig. 3.16. Active balancing circuits.

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In practice however, the active balancing brings very little benefit. The better efficiency ratio of the battery
system is not worth the additional hardware that is required for the active balancing circuitry. Therefore,
most of the balancing solutions tend to be passive.

3.7.3 BMS hardware and topology

The design of the battery management system on a hardware level follows usually one of two principal
design philosophies, centralized or distributed. In a centralized design, the BMS hardware is all place on a
single printed circuit board (PCB), which is designed to fulfill all functional requirements of the BMS.
Distributed design, as the name implies, distributes the functionalities of BMS into various slave boards,
which are in turn controlled by a master board. In practice, the centralized design is dominant in smaller
battery systems and the distributed design in larger systems.

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4 Applications of electrical energy storages
Energy storages can be used in countless applications. One important application of the energy sector is
related to the transportation: electric vehicles. EVs will be discussed in Sections 5 and 6 in this document,
but in this section, we concentrate on stationary applications in the power system (electrical energy
system) sector.

4.1 Why energy storages and interesting

There are two main reasons why energy storages would be interesting in the future:
 The need to drastically reduce greenhouse has (GHG) and other emissions.
 Decreasing prices of energy storage technologies, especially battery technology.
4.1.1 Emission reductions
A root cause for many needs for electrical energy storage (EES) systems is the climate change. There is an
urgent need to reduce global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions globally. The report “Global Warming of 1.5
°C” [IPCC18] by IPCC (international panel on climate change) states that in order to restrict the average
temperature rise to 1.5 °C compared to the pre-industrial time, the mankind should cut the total GHG
emissions 45% by 2030 and by 100% by 2050 compared to the level of 2010. These numbers refer to total
GHG emissions, but if the numbers are projected to the global energy production related CO 2 emissions,
we get the result illustrated in Fig. 4.1. The figure presents annual global energy production related CO2
emissions 1980–2017 and projections of emission reductions of 45% by 2030 and 100% by 2050 compared
to the level of 2010. The reduction need is huge and the schedule is very tight, especially if we consider the
following facts.
 The world population is growing.
 Billions of people living in poverty today are increasing their income starting to lift their living
standards.
 Most of the states in the world are reaching for as high economic growth as possible, which leads
to increasing energy and other material needs.

Emission reduction need is a challenge.

Fig. 4.1. Annual global energy production related CO2 emissions 1980–2017 and projections of emission
reductions of 45% by 2030 and 100% by 2050 compared to the level of 2010. (Data: IEA)

53
In order to reduce CO2 emissions in the energy sector, obviously high-emission energy sources should be
replaced by low CO2 emission sources. Figure 4.2. shows the total primary energy supply of the world by
energy sources. It can be seen that fossil fuels coal, oil and natural gas dominate the energy production
mix. In 2016, about 81% of the primary energy comes from these sources. Category “Other” comprises e.g.
solar and wind power, whose proportion was 1.7% in 2016.

Fig. 4.2. Total primary energy supply by sources in 1971–2016. Picture: International Energy Agency (IEA),
Key world energy statistics 2018.

If we consider electricity production only, things look a bit different. Figure 4.3 shows the world electricity
generation by different energy sources. In 2016, about 65% of electricity was produced using fossil fuels.
The proportion of “Non-hydro renewables and waste” including also solar and wind is growing quite
remarkably.

Fig. 4.3. World electricity generation by sources in 1971–2016. Picture: International Energy Agency (IEA),
Key world energy statistics 2018.

54
In order to drive the fossil electricity production down, one has to increase the use of low CO2 sources
significantly in the coming years. These sources are e.g. solar power, wind power and nuclear power.
Nuclear power is politically quite sensitive solution, but still it is a low CO2 energy source. Increasing wind
and solar power significantly brings some challenges to the electrical energy system. The basic thing is that
wind and solar are weather-dependent energy sources. Wind power produces energy only when it is windy,
and solar power needs sun to shine.

Fig. 4.4 represents wind power production in Finland in late September and early October 2017. At that
time, wind power capacity was somewhere around 2000 MW. It can be seen that there was roughly one
week long period, where the average wind power production was only a few percent of the total wind
power capacity. At that time, consumption was somewhere around 8000–9000 MW. This example
illustrates that in a wind power based system, one must be prepared for quite long periods of very low
wind power. Also during these kinds of times, solar power is not either always present. Regardless of the
latitude where solar power is installed, there is no power production when it is dark (like at nights). In that
case, if there would be no wind power available, something else would be needed.

Fig. 4.4. Wind power production in Finland in late September and early October 2017. At that time, wind
power capacity was somewhere around 1500–2000 MW.

The previous example showed one example case, where there was a need to replace the wind power by
some other production for many days. However, installing intermittent production, like wind power, to the
system increases also the wind power replacement needs in other time scales. We will not get into these
deeply in this course, but Fig. 4.5 presents the results of various studies showing the increase of reserve
requirements in different studied cases. Reserves in power systems are either power plants, controllable
loads or energy storages, which are used to balance the production and consumption of electricity in power
system. The figure shows the increase of reserve capacity requirement as a function of added wind power
capacity. From Fig. 4.5 one can see that in some cases, at even quite modest amounts of wind power
reserve capacity can increase quite much compared to the amount of wind power capacity.

55
 Fig. 4.5. Summary of results from different studies for increase in reserve requirements due to wind
power. [Holttinen16].

For both of the examples, of Figures 4.4 and 4.5, energy storages could be used to solve the problem.
However, suitable business models and storage technologies depend highly on the case. There are no one
size fits all type solutions. Maintaining the balance in the power system is discussed further in Sections 4.2
and 4.3.1.

4.1.2 Energy storage price decrease

Due to the activity of companies, universities, research institutions and users, technology tends to improve.
Cost efficiency is one important factors, which is actively being improved. Figure 4.6 illustrates the
mechanism behind cost efficiency improvement of energy storage technologies. There is R&D activity made
by companies, universities and other actors. This improves the technology, which lowers the prices
enabling more economically feasible energy storage applications. New applications increases the demand
of storage technologies and further push the production capacities. Also, the new applications bring new
experiences from the field and helps R&D further. As an example, Figures 4.7 and 4.8 illustrate the price
development of lithium-ion batteries. It can be seen that at cell level, the prices have decreased by dozens
of percent over the las few years, and it is expected that prices continue falling. However, it should be
noted that there is no single price for lithium-ion battery, but battery prices depend on various things like
battery chemistry, battery design, manufacturing quality etc.

56
Fig. 4.6. The general process which increases energy storage technology cost effectiveness. Picture:
redrawn partly based on [Irena17]

Fig. 4.7. Estimates of costs of lithium-ion batteries for use in electric vehicles. [Nykvist15]

57
 Fig. 4.8. Lithium-ion battery cell costs. [Pillot18]

4.2 Applications of electrical energy storages in power system

In this section, we try to give an overview on different applications of electrical energy storages (EES) in
power systems. In principle, there are various potential application, and the number of potential
applications tend to increase as the storage prices decrease and the values of energy storage in different
applications increase. We will not discuss very much on electric vehicles in this section, but we leave the
EV discussion to the Sections 5 and 6. In below, we will first very briefly have a look on different types of
applications, and after that, we will discuss four different specific examples of potential EES applications.

The purpose of electrical power system is to provide electrical energy for the needs of the consumers cost-
efficiently and with high level of reliability and safety. EESs can be used to maintain or improve cost
efficiency, reliability and safety in different operational conditions.

In a power system, the balance between power production and consumption has to be maintained every
moment. When individual people, companies and other entities use electricity, they switch electrical
appliances on and off based on their needs and preferences. This means that from power system viewpoint,
electricity consumption varies over time in an uncontrolled manner. As discussed above, in the future we
will have much more variable intermittent power production like solar and wind power units, which will
produce power also in uncontrolled manner. As wind and solar power do not typically have
electromechanical inertia (see section 4.3.1), large proportions of these types of power production makes
the management of production-consumption-balance more challenging. Balancing physical power
production and consumption is one of the most important application type of EES systems in the power
system domain. Balancing can be made in different time scales like within
 Seconds to minute
 Some hours
 Some days
 Weeks or months.

58
These time scales refer to certain reaction time requirements and durations of EES discharge. Depending
on the time scale, some energy storage technologies fit better to a certain balancing application than other
technologies. Today, the balancing is made using different reserve markets (as discussed in Section 4.1.1)
and other balancing related markets. Often terms like “spinning” and “non-spinning” reserves are used for
the energy resources in the balancing related markets [IEA14].

Another potential application type of EES systems is their use in the (wholesale) electricity market.
Electricity markets are one of the back-bones of modern power systems. Today the modern power systems
like the Nordic/North-European power system is operated using sophisticated electricity market. Also the
balance between power production and consumption is maintained using energy resources via different
market places, where the transmission system operator (TSO) buys “balancing services” from the capacity
owners who can produce these services. In Nordic countries, TSO runs different types of reserve markets
and for example the balancing energy market which are highly used and important. In addition to these,
energy storages could be used also by energy companies/electricity retailers to increasing the revenues
and/or managing the risks of the in the electricity market. One way to increase the profit by an energy
company is called arbitrage, which essentially means that you buy electricity and charge your storage when
electricity price is low, and you sell the energy (and discharge your storage) when prices are high. There
are also different concepts of “financial balance” in electricity markets. For example in the Nordic market,
a retailer has to estimate the consumption of its customers for every hour in order to purchase the right
amount of energy from the wholesale market. If the consumption estimate is too low compared to the
realized consumption, the retailer must buy the difference from the balancing energy market, and if the
consumption estimate is too high, the retailer has to sell the surplus energy to the balancing energy market.
In both of the cases, the retailer may suffer a monetary loss compared to the situation where the
consumption estimate would match the real consumption. These monetary losses can eventually be quite
high. EES systems could be used tune the real consumption to match the estimated consumption in order
to avoid the loss and therefore the manage the volume risk in the market.

Individual consumers can also use EES systems at their homes/premises in many ways. One application is
that consumers can minimize their electricity costs by shifting the energy consumption (the energy uptake
from the grid) to the times of lower electricity prices or maximizing the self-usage local solar power plant.
This is explained in more detail in Section 4.3.4. Also at household level, EES system can be used as a back-
up power in case of outage similarly as for example the uninterruptable power supply (UPS) devices. These
UPS devices have been on the market for a long time. Feeding power for household appliances for a short
time does not require high amounts of energy or power. Using an electric vehicle for a back-up power plant
in a household is discussed in Section 6.5.

EES systems could also be used for many purposes for the needs of the electricity distribution networks.
One option is to shave the consumption peaks in certain part of the distribution network during normal or
disturbance situation. When there is a disturbance in the grid leading to outage for some customers, in
many occasions the distribution system operator (DSO) can use back-up connection to restore the voltage
to the grid. However, in many cases a potential back-up connection might not have enough high power
transfer capacity in order to restore electricity for the customers. DSO could enable the use of some back-
up connection using an EES system, which means that during the disturbance, the storage would be
discharged to the grid in order to supplement the power supplied from the back-up connection line.
Another application of EES is distribution grids is the improvement of power quality. EES could be used to
compensate voltage dips in the grids or the power electronic converter could be used to produce or

59
consumer reactive power. In principle, also some harmonic mitigation could be possible. One potential
application of EES is the compensation of short interruptions in the grid. This would mean compensation
of automatic reclosing and other short interruptions. This example is explained in more detail in Section
4.3.3.

Different energy storage applications set different requirements for the energy storage technology. Figure
4.9. gives some examples of the capacity and discharge duration related requirements which different
energy storage applications set for the energy storage technologies. One can see from the figure that most
of the energy storage application require discharge duration capability of some minutes to some hours.
The capacity requirements for different application vary hugely, but it is important to notice that in many
applications, one can use large and high-capacity EES system units or a larger number of smaller units
distributed geographically in many places. Figure 4.10 illustrates this thing. For example, battery energy
storage system operating as a power system reserve can comprise a single 100 MW unit located in the
transmission system or 100 units of 1 MW capacity located in many places in the distribution grid. Both of
these architectures have their pros and cons.

Exercise: What are the pros and cons of centralized and distributed energy storage systems?

Fig. 4.9. Capacity and discharge duration related requirements for the energy storages set by different
energy storage applications. [IEA14]

60
Fig. 4.10. Energy storage units can be in many capacity classes and may be located in many places in the
energy system. [IEA14]

Generally, the energy storage applications in power systems are used increase flexibility to the system.
However, in many cases, energy storage is only one option among others. Other solutions competing with
energy storages are e.g. the following.
 Flexible energy production. In order to get flexibility to the power system, one can use flexible
energy production units. These could be power plants working with some renewable fuels or
certain type of nuclear power plants.
 Demand response (DR). DR means that electricity consumers change their electricity consumption
profile based on dynamic “electricity price” or other contracted signal. Demand reacting to
different power system related signals would increase the flexibility in the system.
 Investments in transmission and distribution grids. Building new transmission lines for example
between countries increases flexibility, as the energy resources in a country can thereafter to be
used by another country. For example, excess wind power can be transferred to a place where
there is less wind power available. And in distribution grids, investing to for example higher
capacity grids is an optional (and traditional) solution compared to EES systems.

In this section, many applications were discussed in a brief and general manner, but in the next section,
four specific examples of the energy storage applications are given.

4.3 Specific examples of energy storage applications

The following four specific examples of energy storage applications are discussed more closely.
1. Power system reserves and balancing power market
2. Solar power ramp rate control
3. Increasing the reliability of electricity distribution
4. Energy cost minimization in domestic environment.

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4.3.1 Power system reserves and balancing power market
Following directly from the first law of thermodynamics (the energy conservation principle), the energy
which is consumed in a power system has to supplied in real time by the power production or storage units.
This balance has to be maintained every moment. Consumption of electricity in a whole power system
comprises typically consumption of millions of individual electrical appliances in millions of households and
other places. This means that consumption varies over time, and forecasting consumption perfectly is
impossible in practice. Also, as consumption changes all the time, the power supply has to adjusted
accordingly. In conventional power plants, this is made by controlling the steam flow of the steam turbine
(in thermal power plants) or water flow (in hydro power plants) in the hydro turbine.

This is illustrated in Fig. 4.11. The steam or water flow causes the mechanical torque 𝑇𝑚 in the turbine-
generator shaft. The electrical load 𝑃𝐿 causes mechanical torque 𝑇𝑒 to the shaft, and the direction of that
torque is opposite to 𝑇𝑚 . The balance between the torques finally defines the rotational speed 𝜔𝑚 of the
turbine-generator system, and this speed is directly proportional to the electrical frequency 𝒇 of the
generator. If the torques have equal magnitude, the frequency is constant. If the load suddenly changes,
𝑇𝑒 also changes. The dynamics and response capability of the turbine-generator system is limited and it
cannot react to changes instantaneously. However, there is a significant moment of inertia (just like in
flywheel energy storages) in the massive turbines and generators, and the rotating moment of inertia
stores significant amount of energy. When the load suddenly increases increasing also 𝑇𝑒 , the energy is
first taken from the kinetic energy of the turbine-generator system, which means that the rotational speed
𝜔𝑚 and the electrical frequency 𝑓 decrease. This means that whoever observes the changes in the
frequency of the grid voltage can observe the balance between the consumption and the production
(mechanical energy production of the turbine) in the power system. If the frequency is decreasing,
production is lower than the consumption, and of the frequency is increasing production is higher than the
consumption. In the present power system, the moment of inertia (or shortly “inertia”) is one of the
backbones of our power system. It can be said that there is a big “flywheel energy storage” in use today in
the national power systems, whose importance is significant.

Fig. 4.11. Principle of power output control of a power plant.

In a power system, the grid frequency is used to adjust production of power plants in order to maintain the
balance between power production and consumption. One can read more about power balance
management in the Finnish/Nordic system from Finnish TSO’s web pages ([Link] In
the Finnish/Nordic transmission system, there are two types of frequency reserves: frequency
containment reserves (FCR) and frequency restoration reserves (FRR). The frequency containment
reserves are used to stabilize the frequency change and to keep the frequency within certain bounds, but
after the operation of these reserves, there will be a deviation in the frequency from the nominal 50 Hz.
The restoration reserves are used to restore frequency back to 50 Hz or at least near to it and thus free the
activated containment reserves.

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In the North-European system there are three types of frequency controlled reserves: Frequency
Containment Reserve for Normal operation (FCR-N), Frequency Containment Reserve for Disturbances
(FCR-D) and Automatic Frequency Restoration Reserves (FRR-A). FCR-N operates within frequency (𝑓)
interval 50.1 Hz ≥ 𝑓 ≥ 49.9 Hz, which is considered a “normal state” frequency range. The target of the TSOs
is to keep the frequency within this normal operation interval. If the frequency decreases below 49.9 Hz,
the FCR-D begins to activate. FRR-A is operated in accordance with frequency deviation in the North-
European synchronous area, but is centrally coordinated by Statnett in Norway. The purpose of FRR-A is to
restore the frequency close to 50 Hz, and the Finnish TSO Fingrid sends reserve activation signal to the
reserve owners.

In addition to automatically controlled reserves, there are three different types of manual Frequency
Restoration Reserves (mFRR) market places in the Finnish system: Balancing Energy Market, Balancing
Capacity Market and Reserve Power Plants. These reserve resources are typically owned by individual
companies, and the TSO buy reserve services from these companies through the market places. The
resources from the Balancing Energy Market is mostly used as an mFRR resources. When the TSO activates
a Balancing Energy Market bid, the resource owner has to activate the resource within 15 minutes.

Figure 4.12 shows an example of frequency behavior after a real frequency disturbance in the Nordic
system. During the first seconds the frequency dropped rapidly. The FCR-D resources operated rapidly
within the first few seconds. After the frequency swing, FRR resources are needed to recover the frequency
back to near 50 Hz. Typically FRR resources react within 15 minutes. Table 4.1 shows activation related
properties of the most important reserves.

Fig. 4.12. Frequency behavior after a real frequency disturbance in the Nordic system.

Table 4.1. Some of the frequency management related market places in the Finnish power system
environment.
Resource Activation frequency range Reaction time
Frequency Containment Reserve for Normal 49.9 Hz … 50.1 Hz 2 min … 3 min
operation (FCR-N)
Frequency Containment Reserve for Disturbances < 49.9 Hz seconds
(FCR-D)
Balancing Energy Market Manually by the TSO 15 min

For both FCR and FRR reserves, the reserve owners can make bids for the TSO in order to participate in the
reserve markets. Today, most of the reserves are either power plants or big controllable (industrial) loads.
In the future, storages could be one significant option (discharging and charging). Fingrid has already set
some special requirements for storage systems participating to the reserve markets. Fingrid’s document

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“Application instruction for the maintenance of frequency controlled reserves” mentions for example the
following: “A reserve unit whose activation capacity is limited (such as an energy storage) shall be
dimensioned so that the reserve unit is capable of continuous full activation of at least 30 minutes.” The
market rules for storages are expected to be developed, as the technology gets more popular.

4.3.2 Solar power ramp rate control

As mentioned earlier, it is very probable that the amount of solar power will increase significantly in the
coming years. Solar power (photovoltaic panels – PV) generator output depends mainly on the irradiance
to the solar cells and partly on their temperature. Fast irradiance changes are due to moving cloud
shadows. Cloud shadows have different characteristics such as speed, direction, shading strength, etc.
Figure 4.13 shows an example of irradiation variations measured in Tampere, Finland.

Fig. 4.13. Irradiation measurements on April 23rd of 2015 measured at TUT solar research power plant
([Link]

Geographical dispersion of solar panels mitigates the power fluctuations, because the larger the PV panel
field is, the slower a moving cloud affects to the total production of the panels. This is also known as spatial
smoothing. The bigger the plant is, the smoother the output power is. Typical direct land areas (panel rows,
walkways between panel rows, roads, buildings for inverters, etc.) of solar power plants are presented in
Table 4.2. In addition, geographical dispersion of solar power plants over a huge area, e.g. southern Finland,
further mitigates the power fluctuations.

Table 4.2. Some of the frequency management related market places in the Finnish power system
environment.
Power capacity Direct land area of the plant Description of the plant
0.1 MW 50 m × 50 m Commercial rooftop
1 MW 150 m × 150 m Small utility-scale
10 MW 500 m × 500 m Medium sized utility-scale

Figure 4.14 shows the example how real PV plants output might look like in fluctuating irradiance
conditions. The figure shows irradiation and power outputs of three simulated PV generators with
capacities of 0.1 MW, 1 MW and 10 MW. It can be seen that the output of a 10 MW PV generator can still
ramp up from 20 to 100 % or ramp down from 100 to 20 % in some minutes. Some electricity grids might

64
not tolerate these kinds of power fluctuations, and fluctuation compensation might be needed to avoid
harmful effects in the electricity grids.

Fig. 4.14. Irradiation and power outputs of three simulated PV generators.

When the amounts of intermittent energy sources increases, transmission system operators set stricter
requirements for grid interconnection. These requirements are also known as grid codes. Many regions
have already limits for positive ramps, i.e. starting up a power plant. Some countries have set requirements
also for negative ramps. E.g. Puerto Rico has a ramp-rate limit of 10% of nominal power per minute, i.e.
power plants can be ramped up from 0 to 100% or down from 100 to 0% in ten minutes. Positive ramps
can be implemented by power curtailment, e.g. limiting power by operating a PV generator outside its
maximum power point. This is already a standard feature in solar inverters. Positive ramp curtailment
means that some of the energy is not produces in order to restrict the positive ramps. Negative ramp
limitations are different and require some kind of an additional power source like power plant or energy
storage. If EES systems are used in negative ramp limitation, the storage is charged when there is excess
power available and discharged when PV generator output power is not sufficient. Energy capacity
requirement depends on the ramp-rate (RR) limit. The stricter the RR limit, the bigger the energy capacity
requirement is. Energy capacity requirement for a 1 MW power plant is approximately 0.1 MWh for 10
%/min RR limit 0.2 MWh for 5 %/min RR limit.

Figure 4.15 shows a simulated example of a 1 MW PV generator with ramp rate limitation in both
directions. The upper part of the figure shows the output of the PV plant 𝑃𝑃𝑉 and grid feeding power 𝑃𝑔𝑟𝑖𝑑
when complying with 10 % ramp-rate limit with the corresponding energy storage system. The lower part
of the picture shows the power of the energy storage system 𝑃𝐸𝑆𝑆 and the change of the state of charge
∆𝐸 ⁄𝑃𝑛𝑜𝑚 of the energy storage system.

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 Fig. 4.15. Simulated example of ramp rate limit application with energy storage system involved.

4.3.3 Increasing the reliability of electricity distribution

The modern society is hugely dependent on reliable power supply, and the dependency is increasing all the
time due to the digitalization and electrification megatrends. The reliability increase can be made in power
generation/transmission system and distribution system levels. Participating to the reserve markets
potentially increases the reliability on the whole power system level, but statistically most of disturbances
are in the distribution systems. Therefore increasing reliability of the distribution system is a potential
application of energy storage systems.

Some overhead lines especially in the medium voltage (MV) grids are built in environments where they are
exposed to lots of faults. An example of a vulnerable line type is a long rural MV line in the forest with snow
burden. In this specific example, we illustrate increasing the power supply reliability of electricity
consumers, who are fed by an overhead MV line with higher-than-average fault rate. This case is depicted
in Fig. 4.16. In this example, the idea is to place a battery energy storage device in the secondary substation
as depicted in Fig. 4.17, and when there is a fault in the MV line, the battery would then feed the low
voltage grid and the related customers so that they would not experience an outage. The battery energy
storage system in Fig. 4.17 is one with fault-ride-through capability meaning that if there is a fault in the
MV line and the circuit breakers of the MV line are opened, the storage would immediately start to feed
the customers from the energy storage so that the customers would not experience any type of outage.
The operation of the storage system during the fault is illustrated in Fig. 4.18.

Figure 4.16. Part of a distribution grid. The grid has a MV overhead line, a secondary transformer and a
low voltage grid where the customers are connected.

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 Figure 4.17. Part of a distribution grid with a battery energy storage system.

Figure 4.18. Battery energy storage system operating as reserve power source for the customers during
the MV fault.

This kind of a system would be an optional choice for cabling or renovating the MV overhead line, but even
the MV overhead line would have plenty of faults, still the battery energy storage would be used only a
very small proportion of time. This is interesting, because in this case, the storage system could also be
used in some other applications at the times when the back-up power source is not needed. Using an
energy storage system for multiple uses is called benefit stacking. One possible option is to use the storage
system also in reserve markets (cf. Section 4.3.1), e.g. as frequency containment reserve for disturbances
(FCR-D). This would mean that if there are no faults in the MV line, the storage system would be ready to
feed power to the feeding grid in case there is a frequency disturbance like a sudden off-trip of a large
power plant. This is illustrated in Fig. 4.19.

Benefit stacking is a very important thing in energy storage applications. Benefit stacking enables significant
improvement of the profitability of the energy storage system. In the research paper [Vilppo18] it is shown
that for example the combination of distribution grid reliability improvement and FCR-D operation could
be profitable already today in some environments.

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Fig. 4.19. Battery storage system operating is a frequency containment reserve for disturbances (FCR-D).

4.3.4 Energy cost minimization in domestic environment

As mentioned in Section 4.2, individual households can also use energy storages for many purposes. One
application is the energy cost minimization in domestic environment. This is not yet a common EES
application but whose profitability is expected to improve in the coming years.

The energy cost minimization means that there are some market mechanisms, which enable the use of EES
system to be used to minimize the electricity related costs. Figure 4.20 illustrates the setup of a household.
The household has a solar power plant on the roof and a battery energy storage system. Also, the
household owner has made an electricity contract which is based on the hourly prices of the wholesale
market in the Nordic power exchange (Elspot day-ahead market). This means that the electricity price for
the customer is different for every hour, and the prices are based directly on the Elspot market. There are
also more static pricing, which is very commonly use, but in this example case, we assume hourly varying
energy pricing. The household owner also uses a typical one-time distribution pricing which means that for
the distribution system operator (DSO) the customer pays constant price (cent/kWh) for the electricity
consumed. In this kind of an environment, there are two ways to reduce energy costs of the household
using energy storages:
 Shifting the consumption to low price hours
 Self-consuming the solar power production.

Shifting the consumption to low hour prices with energy storage means that when the prices are low, the
battery storage would be charged, and when the prices are high, the battery storage would be discharged
feeding the household loads. In this way, the electricity uptake from the grid would be shifted to low price
hours. In order to get benefit from the varying prices, there has to be differences (volatility) in the prices
between different hours. Figure 4.21 illustrates the hourly prices of three different days. It can be seen that
the volatility inside a day varies day-by-day. In the long run, the variability is probably going to evolve. The
increase of intermittent power production like wind and solar power tends to increase the volatility.

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 Fig. 4.20. The setup of a household with solar panels and energy storage system.
[Link]

Fig. 4.21. Hourly electricity prices of three different days, and the differences between maximum and
minimum prices within each of the days.

Another incentive to use energy storages in household is self-consumption of the solar power production.
When a household is producing electricity with solar panels, there are two basic options: the power is used
by the appliances in the household or the power is fed to the distribution grid. The present market
mechanism in Finland is such that when a household customer sells the electricity to the grid, the customer
typically gets a price for the electricity based directly on the Elspot (or just “Spot”) price of the
corresponding hour. This price is typically a few cents/kWh, for example 5 cents/kWh. If a customer buys
the electricity from the grid, he/she has to pay for the energy based on the current hour’s Elspot price (in
our case), the price of the distribution tariff and different taxes like electricity tax and value added tax
(VAT). The total price varies between different hours and different tariffs of the distribution system

69
operators but a realistic order of magnitude is about 15 cents/kWh. As a summary, buying the electricity
from the grid costs about 15 cents/kWh and by selling the solar power to the grid the customer gets about
5 cents/kWh. Figure 4.22 illustrates these prices. The pricing structure mean that it is economically viable
to self-consume the solar power instead of selling it to the grid; one can save money about 10 cent/kWh
by self-consuming the power. However, self-consumption is not always possible as the power consumption
may happen in different time as the solar power production. To solve this issue, an energy storage can be
used. This means that the storage is charged in accordance of solar power production and discharged when
there is electricity consumption in the household.

Fig. 4.22. Electricity prices when bought from the grid (purchase price) and when sold to the grid (selling
price).

The profitability of using battery energy storage in energy cost minimization in household in a way
described in this example depend on many things. The most important factors affecting the profitability
are the following:

 Load profile of the customer.

 Solar power production profile.
 Prices of the battery storage systems, or more generally EES systems.
 Prices and pricing structures of electricity. The variability of the hourly electricity prices is an
important thing [Rautiainen17], but also the other price components have impact. In our example
case, we assumed constant distribution pricing (in cents/kWh), but also distribution prices might
have some dynamic features like time-of-use components (e.g. distribution price is lower during
night-time and higher during day-time) or peak power based components (€/kW considering peak
power of the customer). In the future, peak power based distribution tariff components will get
more popular in Finland.

To have more insight to these issues, the reader could read research papers [Koskela17] and [Koskela18].

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5 Introduction to electric vehicles
So far, we have discussed energy storage technologies and the most potential energy storage applications
in the energy system domain. One significant application of energy storages is electric transportation.
Energy system of transportation is a significant consumer of energy and significant producer of different
types of emissions. By electrification, both the primary energy consumption and the emissions can be
reduced. In this section, we discuss the fundamentals of electric vehicles (EVs), and we will try to answer
the following questions: What are EVs? Why do we want EVs? What are the main barriers of high
penetration level of EVs?

5.1 What are electric Vehicles?

Good way to understand electric and hybrid vehicles is to first have a look on regular internal combustion
engine (ICE) based cars. In an ICE car, there is a fuel tank from which fuel is taken and combusted in the
ICE (see Fig. 5.1). ICE produces mechanical energy, which is transferred to driving wheels and converted to
kinetic energy of the car.

Fig. 5.1. Traditional internal combustion engine based car. Redrawn based on [Laurikko09].

Full electric vehicles (see Fig. 5.2) have a large battery pack instead of fuel tank and instead of an ICE there
is an electric motor. Electrical energy is taken from the battery pack and used in electric motor to produce
mechanical energy. This mechanical energy is transferred through the transaxle to the driving wheels and
converted to the kinetic energy of the car.

Compared to conventional ICE cars, the driving ranges of today’s full EVs are significantly lower than with
ICE cars. Range is mostly around 200–400 km with full battery depending on the car and the driving
conditions. The specific electricity consumption of a passenger car sized EV is around 0.15–0.25 kWh/km,
but depends highly on the driving conditions. The charging the battery pack from empty to full state of
charge (SOC) takes typically around an hour (or 30–60 min from 0% to 80% SOC) with fast charging stations
and several or even dozens of hours with slower charging. IC engine based cars have a range of at from a
few hundred kilometers to around 1000 km. ICE cars can also be fueled in a few minutes from empty to
full tank.

An interesting feature in electric vehicles is possibility to convert kinetic energy of the vehicle to electrical
energy and store it back to the battery during braking. This operation is called recuperation of energy or
regenerative braking. In regenerative braking the direction of the energy flow is opposite compared to
regular driving. Regenerative braking can be made to some extent in normal IC engine cars, as the braking
energy can be consumed in auxiliary appliances such as air conditioning and different types of electronics
of the car.

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 Fig. 5.2. Full electric vehicle. Redrawn based on [Laurikko09].

Hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs) (or just hybrid vehicles) are vehicles, which have two power sources,
typically an ICE and a battery pack together with an electric motor. There are different types of hybrid
vehicles available.

Fig. 5.3 represents a parallel hybrid. In a parallel hybrid, both the IC engine and electric motor (EM) have a
direct mechanical connection to the driving wheels through the transaxle. IC engine has different
efficiencies in different operation points. The electrical power train has two main purposes. Firstly, it is
used to optimize the operation of the IC engine by using the electric motor in such way that the IC engine
could operate as efficiently as possible. Another purpose is the recuperation of the braking energy.

Fig. 5.3. Parallel hybrid electric vehicle. Redrawn based on [Laurikko09].

In Fig. 5.4, a serial hybrid electric vehicle is illustrated. In a serial hybrid there is a new component in the
power train: the generator. In this configuration the IC engine works as an electric power plant producing
electrical energy. This energy is fed to the battery and further to the electric motor. Serial hybrid differs
from parallel hybrid in a way that now the IC engine does not have direct mechanical contact to the driving
wheels. Thus, all the mechanical power is produced by the electric motor.

It is important to notice that in the previous hybrid electric vehicles all the energy used by the car is taken
from the liquid fuel, gasoline or diesel, stored in the fuel tank. The battery works only as an energy buffer,
which temporarily stores energy and then feeds it back to the driving wheels. These kinds of hybrid electric
vehicles are sometimes called autonomous hybrid electric vehicles.

In addition to previous drive configurations, there are also more complex configurations being a mix of
serial and parallel configurations.

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 Fig. 5.4. A serial hybrid electric vehicle. Redrawn based on [Laurikko09].

In fig. 5.5, a serial plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV) is illustrated. One difference compared to the
previous configuration is that now there is a battery with larger capacity. The most important difference is
the possibility to charge the battery from the electricity grid. This is a significant thing, as now part of the
energy, which the car uses can now be taken from the electricity network. This means that at least part of
the energy coming from gasoline or diesel can be replaced with electricity coming from the grid. We
remember that in the previous (non-plug-in) hybrid configurations all the energy used by the car was taken
from the liquid fuel stored in the fuel tank.

Fig. 5.5. Plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (serial drive configuration). Redrawn based on [Laurikko09].

The main idea of a PHEV is that the vehicle always uses electrical energy stored in the battery pack when
possible but when electricity cannot be used, the vehicle uses liquid fuel. In a PHEV there are two different
fundamental driving modes: charge depleting (CD) and charge sustaining (CS) modes [Kromer07] [Mi11]
which are illustrated in Fig. 5.6. CD mode means that when the state-of-charge (SOC) of the battery pack is
above a certain limit, instead of using liquid fuel the vehicle uses always electricity when possible. There
are two different types of CD modes: all-electric or blended. In all-electric CD mode the IC engine is not
used at all during CD operation which means that only the electric power train is used. All-electric mode
requires that the battery pack and the power train must be capable to deliver all the power the car needs
for driving [Mi11]. This requires large enough electric machine(s) and high enough power delivering
capability of the battery pack. In blended CD mode, the IC engine is used in some situations but so that
electricity from the battery pack is always used when possible. Typically in a PHEV with blended mode, the

73
IC engine is used when the power requirement is above some limit. In practice, these situations are those
when the velocity of the vehicle is high or if the vehicle is accelerated rapidly. In the CS mode, PHEV works
as an autonomous hybrid: the battery is used as an energy buffer.

State of
charge of
the battery CD (Charge
Depleting) mode CS (Charge Sustaining) mode
90%

25%
All-electric or
blended
Driven distance
without recharging
Fig. 5.6. Illustrative presentation of the driving modes of a PHEV. Redrawn based on figure 7 in [Kromer07].

Exercise: Search the internet for the typical battery capacities and electrical ranges of different commercial
full EVs and PHEVs.

In this document, electric vehicle (EV) is defined to be a road vehicle which includes an electric power train
and an on-board electricity storage which can be charged from an energy source outside the vehicle. This
means that further in the text, EV means either a full electric vehicle or a plug-in hybrid electric vehicle.
From the energy system point-of-view, the most important aspect of EVs is that the use of liquid fuel is
replaced with the use of electricity produced in electric power plants, and this is beneficial for many
reasons, which will be discussed more in Section 5.4.

The EV related terminology in the literature and media is quite diverse. In some cases, but not in this text,
autonomous hybrid electric vehicles (autonomous HEVs) which include an electric power train but whose
electricity storage cannot be charged outside the vehicle are also considered as “EVs”. In some cases plug-
in vehicle or plug-in electric vehicle are used as synonyms of electric vehicle. Sometimes battery electric
vehicle (BEV) is used as a synonym for full EV, and extended range electric vehicle (EREV) or range
extended electric vehicle (REEV) are used as synonyms of a PHEV. In some cases PHEV is considered a
different type of vehicle than REEV or EREV.

The history of EVs is interesting. EVs, and particularly full EVs, had their “golden days” in the beginning of
the twentieth century [Burton13]. For example in 1900 nearly 40% of the cars sold in the USA were EVs
and portion of gasoline cars was only about 22% [Burton13]. There were many reasons for the success of
EVs during those days, but as the key technologies related to ICE cars developed, the popularity of EVs
started to decrease rapidly. However, because of environmental challenges related to today’s road
transportation, EVs might become popular again during the following years.

74
5.2 EV charging in practice
An EV has to be charged using a charging station or at least a socket-outlet. EV charging can be divided into
two types: AC and DC charging. In AC charging, an on-board charger is located inside the vehicle and AC
voltage and current is fed to the vehicle from the charging station. In DC charging, an off-board charger is
located in the charging station feeding DC voltage and current to the vehicle. Figure 5.7. illustrates these
two basic ways of charging.

AC voltage
and current
AC
charging
station +
–

DC voltage
and current

DC
charging +
–

station

Fig. 5.7. The principle of AC and DC charging.

For physical charging interfaces, there are different standardized solutions available. In order to be exact,
one should know and use the right terminology. Fig. 5.8 explains the standardized terminology for physical
charging connections.
Socket
outlet Plug
Connector Inlet
Charging
station EV

Fig. 5.8. The standardized terminology of physical charging interface.

The widely respected international standard IEC 61851-1 (and the related EN and national standards)
defines four different charging modes: mode 1, mode 2, mode 3 and mode 4. Table 5.1 presents the main
properties and functionalities of the charging modes.

Mode 1 is mostly intended for charging of light vehicles such as mopeds with low currents and/or short
charging times. In practice, modes 2–4 are used in charging of electric passenger cars. Modes 1–3 are AC
charging methods and mode 4 is a DC charging method.

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 Table 5.1. Charging modes of EVs (IEC 61851-1).

Charging mode Properties and functionalities

Mode 1  An AC charging method.
 Intended mostly for charging of light vehicles such as mopeds
with modest battery capacities.
 Typically used with short charging times and/or low charging
currents.
 1-, 2- or 3-phase charging with an AC current up to 16 A
 The feeding socket must be equipped with an RCD.

Mode 2  An AC charging method.

 Used for “slow” charging of electric cars.
 1-, 2- or 3-phase charging with an AC current up to 32 A
 Charging cable is equipped with an in-cable control and
protection device (IC-CPD) which includes some control and
safety related functionalities such as possibility to restrict the
charging current drawn from the socket outlet.
 Extended safety functionalities such as the following.
 Continuous protective earth conductor continuity
checking
 There is no AC network voltage in the vehicle connector
unless a vehicle is appropriately connected.
 In practice all commercial EVs are sold with a mode 2 charging
cable.
Mode 3  An AC charging method.
 Intended for the basic charging of EVs.
 1-, 2- or 3-phase charging with an AC current up to 1×70 A or
3×63A
 Extended safety functionalities such as the following.
 Continuous protective earth conductor continuity
checking.
 There is no AC network voltage in the socket outlet unless
a vehicle is appropriately connected.
 Extended control possibilities such as possibility of the
charging station to control the maximum current which the
charger can draw from the network.
Mode 4  DC charging method.
 Charging control is based on sophisticated communication
between the charging station and the vehicle.
 Enables flexible and controllable charging with a theoretical
maximum power of 120–170 kW (IEC 62196-3), although
practical products have much lower nominal powers.
 For mode 4 use, the charging cable with the vehicle connector
is fixed in the charging station.
The figures of the table are reprinted by a courtesy of SESKO ry.

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Mode 2 charging is quite generally considered as a “temporary” charging method or as a charging method
of a “transitional period” which means that mode 3 and 4 charging methods would increase their share in
the future and the share of mode 2 charging would decrease. Typically every commercial EV is delivered to
the consumer with a mode 2 charging cable. In many European countries regular “Schuko” socket outlets
are used in mode 2 charging in most of the cases. In a mode 2 charging cable there is a so-called in-cable
control and protection device (IC-CPD), which includes some safety functionalities such as a residual
current device (RCD). There has been some experience from the field that Schuko socket outlets and plugs
and related electric installations have overheated when high currents such as 16 A have been used for long
time. IC-CPD also restricts the charging current to a level, typically around 10 A, which is considered safe
to use in domestic socket outlets. Using 3-phase IEC 60309 plug and socket outlet offers a safer way to use
high currents for longer times. For example in Finland there is a very large number of outdoor Schuko
socket outlets for preheating of the car engines in winter, but the number of 3-phase sockets outlets is
much lower.

Exercise: Search the internet for pictures of socket outlets, which have been damaged (by overheating) by
high-current EV charging.

Mode 3 is preferred and recommended for the everyday use by the EV related industry and different
regulative and instructive organizations. In mode 3, charging socket outlets dedicated to EV charging are
used and the charging mode enables charging rates from one-phase 6 A up to three-phase 63 A. In Mode
3 charging, the charging station allows some maximum charging current/power, but the maximum power
is typically restricted by the on-board charger of the EV. Typically, full EVs have one-phase on-board
chargers, and the maximum charging current is around 25 A enabling roughly 6 kW charging power. Some
car models have 2- or 3-phase chargers allowing higher powers, up to 22 kW with 3 × 32 A charging. PHEVs
have typically lower charging powers, around 3–3.5 kW. Mode 3 charging includes many sophisticated, e.g.
safety related, functionalities, but also a possibility to control the maximum current which the vehicle can
draw from the socket. In most of the countries in Europe, the de facto mode 3 socket outlet standard is
“Type 2” defined in IEC 62196-2.

Figure 5.9 presents the most common socket-outlets and plugs used for AC charging and Fig. 5.10 presents
the most common connectors and inlets used in AC charging. Figure 5.11 describes the pins of the mode 3
interface. In addition to normal AC electricity contacts (L1, L2, L3, N and PE), there are two pins (control
pilot and proximity) for simple communication between the car and the charging station.

77
 Fig. 5.9. Plugs and socket outlets for AC charging relevant for Finland.

Fig. 5.10. Connectors and inlets for AC charging relevant for Finland.

Fig. 5.11. The pins in the Mode 3 plug.

Mode 4 enables the use of very high charging powers, because the charger is located outside the car.
Typically mode 4 charging powers have nominal powers of 50 kW, but there are also for example 150 kW
and 20 kW commercial chargers available. The trend seems to be that the maximum charging powers are
increasing in the future. When considering the high DC charging powers, one should remember that

78
typically, the car takes the peak power of the charging station only for a quite short period, and after that
the charging power starts to decrease during the charging process. Figures 5.12 and 5.13 illustrates this
fact. The power profiles during DC charging depend on many things like the type of the car, the state of
charge of the battery pack and the temperature of the car battery.

Fig. 5.12. Charging measurements of different charging sessions of two 50 kW DC charging stations.

Fig. 5.13. Power profile of a Tesla Supercharger station. The step in the end of the charging station is due
to the actions of the people who did the measurement, and therefore the step is not typically present in
the Tesla Supercharger charging.

The charging power DC charging is very useful in cases where the battery pack of the car is large and one
needs to have battery charged within an hour. The charging current of the car can also be restricted with
mode 4 charger by the charging station. Fig. 5.14 illustrates the typical connectors and inlets of DC charging.

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The “CHAdeMO” charging connector and vehicle inlet has been used a lot in previous years in many
countries, but today the use of “Combo 2” interface has become pretty much the de facto standard in
Europe.

Fig. 5.14. Connectors and inlets for DC charging relevant for Finland.

The idea of “combo” or “combined charging system (CCS)” is illustrated in Fig. 5.15. When AC charging is
used, the connector is connected to the upper part of the inlet, and in case of DC charging, the whole inlet
is used so that the two pins in the lower end of the inlet carry the DC voltage and current.

Figure 5.15. The idea of “combo” or “combine charging system (CCS)”.

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In addition to these charging modes, wireless charging technology is also evolving and standardization
activity related to it is going on. A practical, safe, energy efficient and cost effective wireless charging
system would be very a convenient solution, and when EV users would get used to it, there would be no
returning to low power conductive charging anymore.

Exercise: Search the internet for the charging options (inlets and charging powers) of different commercial
full EVs and PHEVs.

5.3 Electric drives and chargers of EVs

In order to have a good overview on EV technology, in this section the electric drives and the power
electronics of EVs are discussed.

5.3.1 Motor types used in EVs

Many different configurations for an electric vehicle have emerged, and the motor types varies from car to
car. The whole car can include only one motor or multiple motors can be distributed to wheels as shown
in Fig. 5.16. Distributed motors are controlled with individual control loops to receive full control of the
given torque and increase the regenerative braking efficiency.

Fig. 5.16. Separate motors for two wheels.

Application of electric drive into modern cars is challenging. The requirements for the motor performance
are more demanding than conventional industrial applications due limited space and energy. The selection
criteria for electric drive train are power density, energy efficiency, torque/speed curve, cost and
reliability.

The typical power range of EV motors is 50-300 kW. Usually motors have low number of poles to minimize
the motor size. The motors have therefore high speed and frequency, e.g. 12 000 rpm, 1 kHz for 10-pole
machine (n=f/p). The motors need to have wide constant power range. The motors needs to have high
power and torque density. Liquid cooling is usually used hence the air-cooling is not efficient in limited
space. The structure and operation principle of the motors will be analyzed in more detail in the course
DEE-33036 Electric Drives.

Torque delivery of internal combustion engine is presented in Fig. 5.17a. The maximum torque is achieved
only in very limited speed region. Therefore, gears are always needed as shown in Fig. 5.17b.

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 a) b)
Fig. 5.17. a) Torque and power delivery of internal combustion engine without gears and b) with gears.

The torque curve of electric motor is totally different as shown in Fig. 5.18. The electric motor is able to
produce high star-up torque and constant torque in wire speed region hence gears are not needed in
electric vehicles. The electric motor operating region can be divided to three slots depending on the motor
speed. The first region, where motor rotating speed is lower than the motor nominal speed, is called
constant torque region. The motor supply voltage frequency is constant. Amplitude of the supply voltage
is changed to vary motor speed.

Fig. 5.18. Torque delivery of electric motor.

The second region, when the motor rotates faster than the nominal speed, is called constant power region,
i.e. field weakening region. The air-gap flux and the maximum torque of the motor decreases inversely
proportional to speed. The supply voltage amplitude, stator current, power and relative slip are constants.
The supply voltage frequency is increased and magnetizing current decreases. If the motor is rotated even
faster, the operating region is called high speed region, i.e. constant slip region. In this case, relative slip
of induction motor decreases and also power decreases inversely proportional to frequency. The allowed
maximum torque is not constant any more but it also decreases inversely proportional to square of the
frequency.

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Induction Motor (IM)
Induction motor is the mostly used motor type in industry and widely used in electric vehicles. It is cheap,
mature technology, reliable and require very little maintenance. The main structure of the induction motor
is shown in Fig. 5.19a. The induction machine is very efficient when running close to synchronous speed as
shown in Fig. 5.19b. However, wide speed range is required in electric vehicles, which decreases efficiency.
Induction motor speed range can be extended by using field-weakening region without any technical
issues. The motor itself is quite simple but an accurate control is needed.

Tesla Model S includes one induction motor with four poles. The motor power is 310 kW, torque 601Nm
and nominal rotating speed 16 000 rpm. The new version has two motors, one in front and another one in
back. There are several versions of the motor. The most powerful version produces 402 kW and the
maximum torque is 967 Nm. Liquid cooling and regenerative braking power capability are used. There are
no gears.

a) b)
Fig. 5.19. a) Induction motor structure and b) energy efficiency depending on the load.

Permanent magnet synchronous motor (PMSM)

Permanent magnet synchronous motors are widely used in electric and hybrid vehicles. The stator is similar
than in induction motor but the rotor copper windings are replaced by permanent magnets. Therefore, the
efficiency and power density are higher than with induction motor. Required cooling system is smaller due
to higher efficiency. Moreover, high torque can be produced especially at low speeds. Permanent magnet
motor has high torque of inertia-relation, i.e. the motor can accelerate very fast. The properties of the
motor can be modified with the placement of the permanent magnets. The drawback is the high price of
permanent magnets, their heat sensitivity and the risk of demagnetization in the field weakening region.
The price of permanent magnet synchronous motor is 20…25 % higher than induction motor.

PMSMs are used e.g. in Toyota Prius V hybrid (60kW, max torque 207 Nm), Ford Escape, Chevy Volt and
Nissan Leaf (80kW, max torque 280 Nm), Volkswagen e-Golf (115hp, max speed 12 000 rpm and 140km/h,
one gear) and in Toyota RAV4.

Brushless DC motor (BLDC)

Construction of brushless DC-motor resembles the permanent magnet AC-motor as shown in Fig. 5a. The
rotor of a brushless DC motor consists of permanent magnets, and the stator of coils. BLDC does not need
regular maintenance as traditional DC motor supplied through brushes. Difference between these motor
types is the waveform of the inverter. BLDC motor is fed by rectangular waves, as shown in Fig. 5b, and
permanent magnet AC motor is fed by sinusoidal waveform.

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 a) b)
Fig. 5.20. a) Brushless DC motor structure and b) motor control principle.

The control of BLDC is simpler than induction motor, but absolute position sensor, i.e. Hall sensor, is
required for accurate control. Only speed sensor is required in the induction motors. Energy efficiency and
power density are high because of permanent magnets. Moreover, the motor obtains high torque. The
drawback is the high prize of permanent magnets. The problem is that, unlike in the induction motor, the
magnetic field is not adjustable because of permanent magnets. However, the motor operating region can
be enlarged with proper control. The other drawback is that permanent magnets are sensitive to high
temperatures and mechanical forces.

This motor is often used with hybrid vehicles that have an electrical motor besides a regular internal
combustion engine. Therefore, the electric motor size is smaller than electric vehicle hence the motor price
is lower. In addition, BLDC motors are used in auxiliary devices in all cars as in door lock motors, seat cooling
fan motors, electric oil pumps and electric parking brake motors.

Synchronous reluctance motor (SRM)

Nowadays, reluctance motors are widely studied in universities and companies. These are already in use,
but not widely yet due to high price. SRM might replace induction motors in the industry in the future due
to tightened energy efficiency requirements of the motors. Energy density of SRM is remarkably higher in
comparison to induction motor. The stator is similar than in induction motor and in PMSM. However, there
is no copper windings or permanent magnets in the rotor as shown in Fig. 5.21.

Fig. 5.21. Synchronous reluctance motor by ABB.

The rotor includes air-gaps and therefore, different magnetic reluctance occurs in direct and quadratic axis.
This leads to torque generation due to reluctance phenomena. The energy efficiency and power density

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are very high due to lack of copper and magnets. Low inertia of the rotor ensures fast acceleration. There
is no risk of demagnetization of the permanent magnets and the structure is simple and rigid. The
advantages of SRM are wide constant power region, effective torque speed characteristics and robust
construction. The motor does not need significant maintenance. Now, the price of the motor is high due
to new technology but in theory, the price is lower due to lack of copper wires and permanent magnets.
Highly accurate control is required to minimize the torque fluctuation and noise especially at low speeds.
The motor is used e.g. in Land Rover.

Permanent magnet assisted reluctance motor (PM-SRM)

This motor is similar than previous SRM but small permanent magnets are installed to the air-gaps of the
rotor as shown in Fig. 5.22. Cheap ferrite can be used instead of more effective, but expensive materials
used in PMSM. This combination results in a high-saliency rotor (i.e. non-uniform air-gap of the motor,
inductances in direct and quadrature axis are highly different), which leads to higher power factor and
higher torque compared conventional SRM. With precise design approach, the motor can reach high
efficiency, high power density and wide speed range. The motor is used e.g. in BMW i3, which nominal
rotating speed is 4500 rpm and maximum speed 11 400 rpm. The maximum torque is 250 Nm and the
motor weight is 65 kg.

Fig. 5.22. Part of the rotor in permanent magnet synchronous assisted reluctance machine.

The future trends in the motor design are to improve power density, i.e. minimize the motor size and
maximize the output torque at the same time, improve heat tolerance of the motors and improve the
intelligence of the motor control. The use of reluctance motors is supposed to be increased in the future
in the industry and, also in electric vehicles. Some companies are also studying the use of axial-flux
machines, e.g. YASA motors.

5.3.2 Power electronic converters used to control the motors in EVs

Power electronics is used in electric vehicles essentially to
 Produce DC voltage to charge the battery
 Produce appropriate AC voltage to drive the electric motor.
Power electronic controls the rotating speed and torque production of the motor. The power converters
needs to be reliable, cheap and energy efficient. Almost all of the switching devices in the electric vehicles
currently are IGBTs because of their suitability in handling the high voltage and power. The development
of silicon carbide (SiC) and gallium-nitride (GaN) semiconductors may increase the power and voltage
handling capacities of the converters in the future, which will result increased power density. New
converter topologies are also studied, e.g. Resonant-ZVS converter by Brusa.

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Almost all electric vehicles use a three-phase two-level bridge inverter topology for converting the DC-
voltage to AC for the motor as shown in Fig. 5.23. In principle, controlling the electric drive of an electric
vehicle is not majorly different from controlling an electric drive in any other case. The control needs to be
accurate and reliable to produce required torque quickly and accurately at all speeds with minimum overall
losses. The torque needs to be maximized for the given stator current limit and the DC voltage. The
sensorless control algorithms are widely studied for industrial applications and for electric vehicles. The
position angle or rotating speed measurement device (resolver or encoder) increase costs and decrease
reliability of the system. The resolver is usually integrated in the motors used in electric vehicles.

Fig. 5.23. The inverter supplying energy from the battery to the motor.

Power electronics used in EV charging

The grid AC voltage needs to transform to DC for the battery. In addition, the power quality is controlled
by the charger of electric vehicle. Charger must have high efficiency and power density to keep the weight
low and minimize the size. Long-term trends require bidirectional architectures to allow the transfer of
power from the battery to the grid, and high frequency switching to reduce the overall size and weight of
the charger. The overview of the charging system structure is shown in Fig. 5.24.

Fig. 5.24. Structure of the EV charging: Figure: IEEE International Electrical Vehicle Conference (IEVC’12).

Different kind of power electronic converters are required in EV charging depending on the charging
method. AC voltage is transferred to DC by using conventional diode-rectifier as shown in Fig. 5.25. Power
factor correction (PFC) boost controls the grid current to be sinusoidal and keep the power factor close to
one. The high power quality requirement is set in the standards. In addition, EMI-filter is connected

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between the grid and diode rectifier to filter out harmonics. Interleaving topologies can be used to reduce
current ripple and filter inductor size. After that, the DC voltage needs to be regulated to be suitable for
the battery. The isolated DC-DC converter structures are always used in charging due to safety reasons.
Motor inverter transforms DC voltage again to suitable AC for the motor.

Fig. 5.25. Schematic diagram of single-phase AC charging in electric vehicle. Figure: Renesas Electronics.

Multilevel converter topologies are used in high-power charging stations instead of conventional two-level
topologies. A lot of research is going related to contactless inductive EV charging, but it is not yet
commercially widely available.

5.4 Drivers for electrification of road transportation

So far in Section 5, we have discussed on how EVs work and how they are charged. In this below, we discuss
the main reasons why EVs are wanted on the roads, and why we do not have them very much on the roads
today.

Road transportation is a very important part of today’s society where the free movement of goods and
people are of major importance. Road transportation is also a significant consumer of energy and globally
the consumption is almost purely based on oil. The main driver for the electrification of road
transportation, i.e. promoting EVs, is the urgent need for transition to a sustainable transportation system.
The use of EVs potentially brings the following benefits for the society.

1. Reduction of greenhouse gas emissions

2. Reduction of air quality related emissions
3. Reduction of oil dependency
4. Reduction of traffic noise in cities
5. Support for the electric power system.

In the Section 5 of this document, we will have a look at these issues more closely, excluding the last item
in the list (support for the electric power system), which is discussed more in Section 6.

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5.4.1 Reduction of greenhouse gas emissions
As discussed in the Section 4.1.1, climate change is a fundamental challenge for the mankind and it has
consequences also to the energy systems of the future. The proportion of global greenhouse gas (GHG)
emissions by Transportation in 2010 was about 14% [EPA18]. In Europe, the transport sector contributed
27 % of total EU-28 greenhouse gas emissions in 2016 [EEA18]. The figure decreases to 20 % if international
aviation and maritime emissions are excluded [EEA18].

EU regulates the CO2 emissions of cars in the member states. Considering passenger cars, car
manufacturers are forced to reduce the average CO2 emission level of their vehicles sold in EU member
states so that in 2021, the average emission has to be ≤ 95 g/km (the average emission in 2017 was 118.5
g/km). Further, the average emission target of 2030 is 30% less than the level of 2021. When electricity is
used in driving, it is considered zero emission driving in this regulative context.

EVs could contribute to CO2 emission decrease, but this requires that the electricity used by EVs is de facto
produced using clean energy sources over the whole life cycle of the EVs. The GHG emissions of EVs can be
divided into three parts:
 Emissions of EV manufacturing
 Emissions of the use of EVs: emissions from the production of electricity used in charging and
possible fuel use in case of PHEVs.
 Emissions of the end of life of EVs (disposal/wrecking, recycling etc.)

In general, when an electric load is connected to a network and the load starts consuming electricity, the
additional power drawn from the network has to be produced more or less in real time (see Section 4.3.1).
Thus, in some power plant(s) the power output has to be increased to fulfill the need of the electric load.
Figure 5.26 presents the hourly electricity production of Finland by sources in 2017. Wind, solar and nuclear
power are driven mostly with full power and CHP (combined heat and power) plants are driven mostly
based on the heat energy need. Therefore, it is not possible to get any additional energy from these sources
to charge your EV. When calculating the CO2 emissions of EVs, one must take this into account. If EVs are
charged using for example hydroelectric power, the additional CO2 emission is roughly 0 g/km. An opposite
example would be condensing power plant using coal corresponding to specific CO2 emissions of about 850
g/kWh [Biomeri09]. If average specific electricity consumption of an EV was 0.2 kWh/km, the specific CO2
emissions of an EV would be about 170 g/km which corresponds to the emission of the use of roughly 6.5
l/100 km gasoline in an ICE. The average specific CO2 emission of Finnish electricity production mix in 2016
would correspond to emission level of 21 g/km, but one should not use this figure when calculating the
emissions caused by additional new consumption.

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 Fig. 5.26. Hourly electricity production of Finland by energy sources in 2017. Data: Finnish Energy
(Energiateollisuus ry – ET).

In Europe, emissions trading system (ETS) plays a significant role in the CO2 emissions of e.g. electricity
production. To understand how ETS works, the reader can have a look on [EUCommission18]. In essence,
ETS has set a cap for the total amount of GHG emissions companies can emit each year by issuing certain
amounts of emission allowances each year. The total amount of allowances that are issued to the
companies decreases every year. If a company needs to emit CO2, it has to have corresponding amount of
emission allowances. If at some year the company does not need all of its emission allowances, the
company can keep the surplus to be used in the coming years or the company can sell them to other
companies. This all means that over the years the amount of emission is fixed in the emission installations
covered by the ETS. If a company increases emissions somewhere in the EU, some other emitter has to
decrease its emissions at some point. Therefore, it can be said that an increase in electricity consumption,
like charging EVs, does not increase the CO2 emissions no matter how the electricity produced in the short
term. On this basis, one can argue that charging of the EVs is zero emission activity in the European Union.

Life cycle emissions constitute a question of their own, and things get more complicated when they are
taken into account. In [Hawkins13] and [Bauer15] comparative environmental life cycle assessments of
conventional and electric vehicles are made. The results depend on many things, but as a rough overview,
the manufacturing of EVs produce GHG emissions easily at least some dozens of percent more than
conventional ICE based cars, but still EVs have the potential to reduce GHG gases over the course of the
vehicles’ lifetime due to potential use of low GHG electricity during the use of the car. The higher GHG
emission of EV manufacturing comes mostly from the manufacturing of Li-ion batteries. Life cycle emission
calculations are very sensible on the assumptions made. Figure 5.27 presents an example from
[Hawkins13] showing the global warming potential (potential GHG emissions) of some electric vehicles and
ICE vehicles over the whole life cycle of the vehicles by different “emission components”. In the figure, four
different EVs are compared with two ICE cars. The EVs represent ones with two different Li-ion battery
positive electrode materials (NCM and LiFePO4, see Section 3.6.4) and three different charging energy
sources: average European emission level (Euro), natural gas (NG) and coal (C). The two ICE cars represent
a diesel (D) and a gasoline (G) car. The assumption in the research paper is that the EVs would have a

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battery capacity of 24 kWh. It can be seen that even with 24 kWh battery pack the impact of battery
manufacturing has a huge impact on the GHG emissions.

Fig. 5.27. Global warming potential of some electric vehicles and ICE vehicles over the whole life cycle of
the vehicles [Hawkins13].

Considering the overall GHG emissions of EVs, it can be said that EVs have huge emission reduction
potential, but the energy used over the whole life cycle of the vehicle has to be low emission in order to
have low emission EV. It is also important to consider the whole system taking into account all the variables
and subsystems, like ETS in Europe, when assessing the emissions of EVs.

5.4.2 Reduction of air quality related emissions

One important driver for EVs is related to air quality, which is a significant problem especially in some big
cities. There is a need to reduce the air quality related emissions of cars especially in large cities, and EVs
could make a contribution to this. Figure 5.28 shows an example of a research paper [Lelieveld15]. Figure
shows numbers of premature mortality linked to outdoor air pollution in 2010 by different contributors
(pollution sources) in different countries. It can be seen that land traffic potentially caused globally about
165,000 premature deaths, which can be considered a very high number. From the Fig. 5.28 one can also
see that also power generation potentially causes huge amounts of premature deaths in many countries.
EVs could decrease the air quality related health hazard, but the power for EV charging has also to be low
emission.

Fig. 5.28. Top 15 ranked countries of premature mortality linked to outdoor air pollution in 2010.
[Lelieveld15]

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5.4.3 Reduction of oil dependency
As mentioned earlier, the modern society is hugely dependent on oil. Almost every human activity in
modern western way of living is connected to oil based transportation or oil in general in one way or
another. For example, food production is highly oil intensive and historically the oil price and food prices
have had a strong positive correlation [Partanen15].

The amount of crude oil in the ground continuously decreases, and the demand of the oil increases. Figure
5.29 present the average daily demand for crude oil worldwide from 2006 to 2018. It is quite clear that the
increasing oil thirst of mankind will lead to some kind of challenges in the future. As we do not get new oil
from anywhere, it is in practice a necessity at some point to stop the crude oil use. A decrease in the oil
dependency of the world is a crucial task for the coming years and decades. The problems with oil are not
related so much to energy but to fuel. There is plenty of energy available in the world, but the problem is
that transportation set different requirements for the energy sources than stationary energy use. Oil based
liquid fuels have high energy density (roughly 10 kWh/l in gasoline), which makes it very usable energy
carrier for transportation.

Fig. 5.29. Daily demand for crude oil worldwide from 2006 to 2018 (2018 value is an estimate). Data:
Data: [Link]

Electric vehicles could be used to decrease crude oil demand. However, the crude oil is used as a raw
material to produce various different products, and the production chains of different products have
interconnections with each other. Figure 5.30 represents a picture of a fractioning column, which are used
in oil refineries. Crude oil is fed to the fractioning column, and different hydrocarbons are got out as
distillates. In order to decrease the use of crude oil, the mankind has to be able to replace all of the crude
oil based hydrocarbons with something else. For example, aviation is growing in the world, and jet fuel
(kerosene) is needed in large amount in airplanes. If we cannot replace the kerosene with some other
energy source, the kerosene has to be made from crude oil, and in this case, we get also other hydrocarbons
such as gasoline and diesel as a side products. We cannot pour them on the ground, so what we would do
with them? This is a challenge in the energy system of transportation in the future.

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 Fig. 5.30. Operation of a fractioning column. [Link]

5.4.4 Reduction of traffic noise in cities

Another local environmental benefit of EVs is the reduced traffic noise in cities. Traffic noise caused by ICE
cars can be divided into two components: noise from the engine and the noise from the tires. When driving
speed is low, the engine noise is the dominating component, but when the speed is high, the tire noise is
the one that dominates the total noise [Holtsmark14]. Therefore, EVs could lower the traffic noise in city
areas where the driving speeds are low.

5.4.5 Other drivers

In addition to environmental and energy system related drivers for road electrification, there can be other
reasons why some people would like to drive EVs, especially if they were affordable enough. The fact that
EVs are quiet, do not release smoke etc., can have surprisingly important role in some people’s buying
decisions even though these people would not experience the noise and smoke of ICE cars as problems.
Different emotion and social status related issues can also be important. One can build his/her own social
status by buying an EV.

5.5 Barriers of EVs

A relevant question is that if EVs bring potentially many benefits for the society and people, why we do not
have too many EVs on the roads today? There are still a few barriers in the way of large scale
commercialization of EVs. The most important are the following.
1. EV prices are still high
2. EVs (especially “car-like” EVs) have been on the market only for a while

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 3. For many full EVs the range is still low
4. Charging infrastructure is under construction.

These issues are not completely separate but have many interdependencies. For example, there is a
bidirectional causality between points one and two. The prices of EVs have been high, which has disabled
high number of people to buy one, but also as the demand for of EVs has been low, the vehicle
manufacturers and service providers have not been able to take full advantage of the economics of scale,
which would decrease the prices of EVs. In addition, the barriers three and four have strong connection
between each other. If the ranges of full EVs are not high enough, an extensive and good charging
infrastructure helps in that, especially in case of fast (DC) charging stations in relevant places.

When purchasing prices of EVs are compared to the prices of traditional ICE cars, it can be seen that EVs
are quite much more expensive. However, the prices are expected to decrease in the future. A significant
price factor of EVs is the high prices of the battery, but that is not the only factor. Lithium-ion battery prices
have come down hugely in recent years as discussed in Section 4.1.2, and car manufacturers are ramping
manufacturing volumes up. These factors decrease the prices of EVs in the future. Also, in different
countries the car related taxation favors EVs compared to ICE cars, and this lowers the EV prices for the
end customer. Also, in many countries purchasing of EVs is being subsidized by the government.

Purchasing price is only one price component. When making an investment, one should always consider
the total cost of ownership. How much are the total car costs over the whole life cycle of a car? Typically
the use related costs of EVs are lower than with ICE cars. Maintenance costs are lower for EVs than with
ICE cars, because electric power train is much simpler (no need to change motor oils etc.), and for example
regenerative braking saves the mechanical brakes. Also the energy costs of EVs are low. Especially in
Finland this is due to fact that the electricity is much cheaper than liquid fuels when compared how much
electricity or fuel is needed to drive a certain distance. This is pretty much because of taxation; electricity
is taxed much lower (per driven km) than liquid fuels. A question of its own is that if we would someday
have large amount of EVs, is the low taxation paradigm of EVs possible, because public expenditure of
governments and municipalities tend to increase and taxes are needed to cover the expenditure. Overall
it can be said that in many cases the total cost of ownership of EVs can already today be lower than ICE
cars. The total cost of ownership is highly dependent on the resale value of the car when it is sold in the
used car market. Most people buy their cars as used cars. Therefore well working market of used EVs is a
necessity. One crucial question in this is that consumers have to be able to trust on adequacy of the EV
battery lifetime and/or reasonable battery replacement cost if the battery is broken. This is hugely
important.

Lack of sufficient charging infrastructure is one significant barrier for EVs and especially full EVs. Generally
it can be said that there is a very extensive coverage of electricity grids in the developed countries, and this
forms a strong foundation for EV charging infrastructure development: at least in principle charging
stations can be built in many places. There has been some debate within the EV community whether to
prefer AC or DC charging which corresponds with preferring low and high power charging, respectively.
Also within the community there is a debate about the reasonable locations of the charging stations. From
the car user point-of-view the characteristics of the charging infrastructure is especially important for full
EV users, because for full EV users the existence of charging possibility might easily be a question of vehicle
usability (“Am I able to drive back home without charging?”). For PHEV users, a charging opportunity is
more a question of maximizing electric driving. The research, e.g. [Rautiainen15], and practical experience

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show that home charging is very important as cars stay at home for long times. In addition to home, work
place charging is also useful, and the public charging infrastructure supplement these charging
opportunities. In [Rautiainen15] it is shows that even with modest charging infrastructure, most of the
kilometers in Finland driven with PHEVs could be driven using electricity. EVs are at their best in city areas
and in many large cities around the world it is quite hard to construct EV charging stations in parking places.
However, in Nordic countries like Finland there are a significant amount of sockets for preheating ICE cars
during winter and these sockets can be used to some extent for EV charging.

In Europe, the EU has set some directives related to the construction of charging infrastructure. Directive
2014/94/EU on the deployment of alternative fuels infrastructure obligates the member states to build
sufficient amounts of public charging stations to each country: “Member States should ensure that
recharging points accessible to the public are built up with adequate coverage, in order to enable electric
vehicles to circulate at least in urban/suburban agglomerations and other densely populated areas, and,
where appropriate, within networks determined by the Member States. The number of such recharging
points should be established taking into account the number of electric vehicles estimated to be registered
by the end of 2020 in each Member State. As an indication, the appropriate average number of recharging
points should be equivalent to at least one recharging point per 10 cars, also taking into consideration the
type of cars, charging technology and available private recharging points.” The directive also states the
following on the physical charging interface: “Alternating current (AC) normal power recharging points for
electric vehicles shall be equipped, for interoperability purposes, at least with socket outlets or vehicle
connectors of Type 2 as described in standard EN 62196-2. … Direct current (DC) high power recharging
points for electric vehicles shall be equipped, for interoperability purposes, at least with connectors of the
combined charging system ‘Combo 2’ as described in standard EN 62196-3.“ Directive 2018/844 obligates
construction of private charging stations (or readiness for charging station) in the following manner: “With
regard to new non-residential buildings and non-residential buildings undergoing major renovation, with
more than ten parking spaces, Member States shall ensure the installation of at least one recharging point
within the meaning of Directive 2014/94/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council and ducting
infrastructure, namely conduits for electric cables, for at least one in every five parking spaces to enable the
installation at a later stage of recharging points for electric vehicles”.

5.6 Electric buses

Electric buses with large batteries are becoming increasingly popular solution in the field of public
transportation. In the close future, the environmental-impact-drivers are also transforming drivetrains of
other heavy commercial vehicles to electric. A sub-category within heavy electric vehicles are hybrid and
full electric buses for city traffic. They are a good starting point due to its nature as public transportation:
 Long operating agreement periods on each route such as 7+3 years
 Routes are fixed in length
 Their energy consumption is known (track record from a long period).

Employing batteries on a drivetrain also keeps the sky open from power lines on the road network, but on
the other hand demands opportunity charging stations along the bus routes. Full electric bus is identical by
structural design to ICE bus, on electric bus the EURO-6 diesel engine is swapped into electric drivetrain.
However, this section focuses more into heavy vehicle charging.

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 High DC voltage powerline Rooftop 4-pole pantograph

On-board converter

VMS & BMS

AC traction motor

Optimal size Li4Ti5O12 battery pack

Depot charging CCS-2 socket

Figure 5.31. Large batteries are located either on the rooftop or inside the floor. Charging base on either
pantograph on the bus rooftop / power dome on the charging station frame or charging rails on the bus
rooftop/ pantograph down from the charging station frame, additionally depot charging inlet is typically
located either close to front door or at the end or front of the electric bus.

5.6.1 Battery size and charging

On the city traffic, on each day, each individual electric bus serves typically several different routes during
its operating hours. Sizing of the battery needs to take account e.g. daily service hours, routes, route
lengths and profiles, passenger volumes, climate conditions, vehicle size and selected charging concept.
Electric buses consume energy approximately 1.5 kWh/km [VDL17], in some cases part of the year heating
or cooling of the bus base on fuel, such as biodiesel or ethanol. Selected charging concept may demand
optimized size battery and multiple charging sessions along the routes during daily service hours or a large
battery pack that is charged only once at the depot. Charging time depends on charging factors: ambient
and battery temperature, size of the battery, battery’s state of charge (SOC) by the start of charging and
the charging concept in use. Electric buses do not differ from any other electric vehicles on charging, as the
BMS (Battery management System) is the master regardless if using AC or DC charging. Before charging
session, the BMS is communicating with VMS (Vehicle Management System) on safety and authentication
checks. Each individual electric vehicle has a vehicle ID that can be used for authentication prior to charging.
Even though electric buses are using dedicated automated charging stations along each route or at each
end stop it is necessary to identify each vehicle as in the future those charging stations can be interoperated
by multiple bus operators or other type of heavy vehicles.

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5.6.2 Charging concepts

Fig. 5.32. Three different charging concepts, A. cable & plug, B. pantograph Up and C. pantograph Down.
Optimized battery charging base on B or C. Overnight charging of a large battery pack is typically
adopting cable based charging A.

In case of using optimized battery pack, automated charging stations are located along the route or at the
end of each route. On the former case, automated charging stations are integrated onto multiple bus stops
on every 3 – 4 stop, charging session takes only seconds (15 -20 sec) and is based typical time that is needed
on stepping in and out from the bus. This is sometimes called Flash charging and its charging power level
can be e.g. 400 kW and charging station can be furnished with supercapacitors to reduce the impact to the
grid and to keep grid connection more economic e.g. 50 kW. Flash charging is more suitable on high volume
passenger routes, with long articulated electric buses (1 or 2 joints).

Fig. 5.33. Simplified diagram of electric bus charging, which can base either on cable (DC or AC) or DC
with pantograph, in all cases BMS is controlling charging settings of off-board chargers (1 and 2) and also
on-board charger (3). BMS communicated with the on/off-board charger and defines the charging session
settings according to charging factors; temperature, size, SOC and charging concept.

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On the latter case, electric buses are charged either on both end turning points of the route or only at the
beginning point of the route, depending on the route’s characteristics. Charging time can be several
minutes e.g. 4–8 minutes and charging power level can be 150–300–450–600 kW, depending on selected
battery size and available time for charging. End stop charging is also called opportunity charging.
Automated charging stations feature either charging dome on the pole structure (pantograph rising up on
the rooftop on each bus) or inverted pantograph attached on the pole (charging rails on the rooftop on
each bus). Pantograph up demands bus driver to stop +/-250 mm sideways and +/- 350 mm longitude,
pantograph down +/-200 mm sideways and +/-250 mm roadways.

+/- 250 mm +/- 200 mm

+/- 350 mm +/- 250 mm

Fig. 5.34. Automated charging station demands bus driver to position the electric bus within +/- 200 mm.

Third charging method base on a charging cable and a plug - while electric bus is parked at the depot. Cable
based charging can be either AC or DC charging. In case of AC charging, the charger is on-board and
electricity is converted to DC, typically on-board charger is either 22 kW (3 × 32 A) or 43 kW (3 × 63 A). In
EU countries Type 2 charging plug and sockets are in use.

In case of DC charging with a cable, the charger provides the AC/DC conversion, utilizing CCS 2 (Combined
Charging System) connector. DC charging power is limited to 150 kW (3 x 315 A) with regular charging
cables and CCS 2 connector. Cable based depot DC charging can also base on lower charging power e.g. 24
kW or 50 kW with a cable from a DC wall box or DC fast charging station. In case of variable parking time
at the depot, it is also possible to use sequential charging to optimize the load into longer timeline. In case
of short parking time at the depot such as from 02:00–05:00 hours, depot charging power needs to be
meet available charging time and demanded kWh value. Therefore some cases opportunity charging
concept with pantograph up or down can be employed also at depot charging.

Charging method at the depot is also an Opex (Operating expenses) matter, as the increased size of the
grid connection features respectively higher monthly grid cost. In some cases, the distance between depot
and operated routes also may have its value if the depot is located close to the routes, as it may provide
opportunity charging for those electric buses that are sifting routes during the day. This may cause higher
usage of the grid connection during daily operation to justify its size.

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 Typical battery capacity Typical lenght of the bus

250 - 600 kWh

All buses

Depot charging
100 - 300 kWh 12 – 18 m

Opportunity charging
70 - 130 kWh 24 m (eBRT)

Typical charging time

Flash charging
< 2 minutes 3 – 6 mins 0,5 – 8 hours

Fig. 5.35. Charging concepts and their characteristics values in terms of battery size, vehicle length and
charging time. Flash charging is for high volume routes, opportunity charging on typical city routes with
length of 10–20 km, depot charging for large battery packs that are only charged during the night and for
overnight charging of electric buses with optimized size batteries.

5.6.3 Interoperated High Power Charging stations

Electric bus and electric truck drivetrains utilize higher voltage level (150-920 VDC) than regular electric
vehicles (150-500VDC). Addition to that, some of the premium electric vehicles feature higher capacity on
their batteries with range of +400 km. They accept higher charging power and are using that higher voltage
level on their electric drivetrain. Therefore commercial charging stations should be designed accordingly
to have sufficient operating space for heavy vehicles – both vertically and horizontally.

CSS HVC 8 x 150 kW

BESS
4.4 meters high shelter

Future HPC station

Interoperated charging station
providing 4 x 350 kW High Power
Charging for all electric vehicles,
2 x Dual 350 kW
charging payment base on energy
and market pricing

Fig. 5.36. In the future, a High Power Charging station may require BESS (Battery Energy Storage System)
to provide local power balancing element to the grid connection point. Charging station can be part of
demand response fleet by limiting charging power dynamically during or before charging session starts.

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5.6.4 Challenges associated to heavy vehicle charging
Opportunity charging stations demand relatively stiff grid connection and in most cases a new CSS
(Compact Secondary Substation) is needed to deliver power from the medium voltage grid. Therefore, it
is most recommended to evaluate possible relocation of the bus route’s end stop’s - close to existing CSS
or at least close to medium voltage grid. In some cases new medium voltage power cabling may result 30-
40 k€/km additional cost for the charging station.

In case of a large traffic hub, which consists multiple automated charging stations, it is recommended to
use CCV medium voltage switch gear such as to gain additional power service security as CCV provides two
alternative power source routes from the grid (circle approach). On a large traffic hub, sizing of the main
electrification components needs also to be addressed. In case of using two DC supply modules (2 x 150
kW) maximum charging power is at the pantograph is 300 kW. Due to the continuous development of the
batteries - electric buses may travel longer routes and as the charging time is more or less cast in concrete
(fixed) due to existing timetables on the route - adding additional space and connections for the third DC
supply (future option + 150 kW) is mostly recommended. As longer routes and increased range may
demand higher charging power to match with the timetable.

In order to keep multiple charging stations or entire charging network up and running it is highly
recommended to use charging stations that provides not only connectivity but also redundancy through
modular electro-mechanical design. A compatibility testing on heavy vehicle charging typically demands
actual hardware testing by the vehicle manufacturer’s premises.

Vehicles and charging needs to fully match before launching them on the road. In some cases in order to
ensure any synchronization issues between the charging station and the vehicle a light beacon can be used
to indicate bus driver when the charging station is ready to start and when it is finished on automated
charging session.

Fig. 5.37. Charging sequence, ensure safe operation, safety measures are continuous and are identical on
both cable and pantograph charging. On cable charging – the charging plug is mechanically locked during
charging session and it also prevents by BMS-VMS vehicle to move.

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 Fig. 5.38. Each charging session starts with vehicle identification, in which the transferred energy is
connected inside OCPP communication. Connected services provide EMO (Electro Mobility Operator) a
power tool for successful operations of the charging network.

To achieve highest possible operating up-time, advanced support through connectivity can be priceless.
Each charging station can be OCPP (Open Charge Point Protocol) connected to the cloud server via fixed
Ethernet cabling or 4/5G connection. Such a connectivity service, that provides remote diagnostic tools on
preventive maintenance and more detailed knowledge on each individual charger, ensure more robust
charging service. On bus routes, highest possible up-time (>98% availability) is typically demanded by PTA
(Public Transportation Authority) and PTO (Public Transportation Operator). Connectivity is the key to
maintain availability high, as occasional field service visits to each charging station are more accurate, due
to multiple levels of real time information on each charger and charging session history on the database.
In the future, connectivity will play more important role as the autonomous vehicles will start driving on
the city road network.

Fig. 5.39. In some cases relocation of the route’s end stop closer to MV grid provides both lower Capex
and Opex.

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5.6.5 Summary of electric buses
Globally frontline countries and major cities are setting new targets and roadmaps to reduce
environmental impact of traffic. The key to achieve those targets lays in electroMobilization. Operating
public transportation with eBus fleet is already cost efficient, currently on heavy electric vehicles (eBus &
eTrucks) the ”street parity” can be exceeded on 5th year. City bus operation is more solid for business as
7+3 years contracts for bus routes. Replacing the ICE drivetrain with batteries and electric motor on heavy
vehicles demands also charging infrastructure. Charging of the electric driven fleet can base on
pantographs or charging with plugs and cables. Charging time depends on ambient and battery
temperature, SOC of the battery, capacity of the battery and charging concept. Relocating the end stop
closer to MV grid may provide additional benefits. HVC DC cabinets (150 kW) demands 3 × 400 A. Charging
power of the HVC station can be increased by adding modules 150-300-450-600 kW. Opportunity charging
at the end stop typically fills the battery up to 80-85%. Depot charging with a charging plug and cable can
be either AC (22/43 kW) or DC (22-150 kW). Depot charging fills the battery up to 100%. In the future
interoperative charging stations serve all vehicles. HPC charging service may base on national electricity
market’s pricing (floating pricing). Energy storages may need to be utilized with multiple tasks to provide
load balance and other grid conditioning operations. The future is electric.

5.7 Competitors of EVs in the road transportation

A more sustainable transportation system of the future, which might include a significant amount of EVs,
will probably have many types of vehicles, which use many types of fuels and energy sources. Although
crude oil is definitely the main energy source of road transportation today and will maintain a significant
role for a while, there are also other alternatives whose role will increase in the future. Figure 5.40 presents
some of the variety of energy sources, fuel production and distribution methods and different ways to end
use the energy in road transportation. In addition to crude oil, there are different types of energy sources
such as biomass, waste, industrial by-products, biogas, natural gas and also some sources of electricity such
as solar, wind, nuclear and hydroelectric power. Using these energy sources, different types liquid and
gaseous fuels and also electricity can be produced, e.g. by P2X concept (see Section 2.4.1), and end used
in different types of vehicles, and all of the energy sources are already used today in road transportation
at least to a small extent. None of the individual energy sources has convincingly proved to be able to tackle
all the challenges, which the energy system of road transportation has faced. In the short term, the
improvement of energy efficiency of conventional ICE cars also includes significant potential to reduce
petroleum and energy consumption and emissions.

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Fig. 5.40. Different types of energy sources and ways to produce, distribute and end use the fuels and
energy sources of road transportation. Figure: Juhani Laurikko, VTT.

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6 Electric vehicles in power systems
In the previous section, we discussed some of the most fundamental issues on electric vehicles. In this
section, we broaden our scope of EVs and discuss what kind of impact EVs could have to the power systems
today and in the future.

6.1 Possible roles of EVs in power systems

It is often thought that EVs could have at least three different types of roles in power systems. Firstly, EVs
can be simply loads consuming electricity from the grid when charging. Secondly, EVs can be used as
controllable loads. This means that in addition to only charging the batteries when possible, the charging
could be shifted, interrupted or restricted due to needs of for the example power system or electricity
market. Considering these first two roles, EV is only a single type of load among other loads. However, the
third role differs from most of today’s resources: energy storage. The battery pack of an EV could be used
to store electricity for the needs of the power system or electricity market.

6.2 EV charging in the grids

From the electricity networks point-of-view the most obvious role of an EV is to charge energy from the
network to the onboard electricity storage, i.e. to operate as a charging load. If large amounts of EVs were
to penetrate the market, it could have impacts on the electricity system and to the distribution network
design. To understand the nature of EV charging load in the grids, it would be ideal if long lasting
measurements of the charging of a large number of real EVs could be carried out in a large number of
different types of charging stations, and this data could be used to model the charging. At this time, the
results of such a research are not available. Also there are no guarantees that today’s EVs and charging
infrastructure, or our today’s visions of them, will be similar with the ones which are really available in the
market and in use at the time when (possibly) the penetration level of EVs is high. Therefore, it is useful to
have a simulation tool for carrying out simulations in different scenarios and with different parameters.
Then comparing the outcomes of these scenario studies, decisions would be easier to make.

In order to study the EV grid impacts, the charging load has to be modeled somehow. To model EV charging
load, the most essential aspects affecting the charging has to be modeled and the results have to be in a
relevant and usable form. The charging load of EVs depends on where, when, how long and with how large
power the charging is made. Further, these depend on the following fundamental characteristics.
 Driving behavior (when and how much is driven, when, where and for how long parking is made)
 Characteristics of the EVs (battery capacity, specific electricity consumption, power train design)
 Characteristics and availability of charging infrastructure
 Functionalities of electricity market (tariffs, demand response etc.)
 Fuzzy, unpredictable and typically irrational behavior of people.

In the research paper [Rautiainen12] charging load modeling is made. The paper describes a systematic
methodology, which could be used to model EVs in electricity distribution networks and to produce models
for other modeling needs. The idea is to use National Travel Survey (NTS) data for modeling the driving
behavior of people. NTS includes the data of thousands of respondents’ car use during a one-day long
period throughout Finland. The data includes for example the following information about every car trip of
the respondent: starting time, duration, length of, type of starting place and type of destination. Assuming

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certain characteristics of the cars and locations and characteristics of the charging stations etc., simple
charging modeling can be made. The results can be formulated in a form, which for example Finnish
distribution system operators (DSOs) can apply in their network information systems.

The main idea of the previous EV charging load modeling is illustrated in Fig. 6.1. The figure presents an
example driver who makes four car trips during the day. The upper part of the figure presents the state of
the car during the day and some information about the trips. In the example it is assumed that in the
beginning of the first trip the battery is full, charging is made at home and at the workplace at charging
powers of 3.5 kW (1 × 15 A) and 2.3 kW (1 × 10 A), respectively. Charging starts immediately when the car
is parked to the parking place equipped with charging station, and charging ends when the battery is full
or the next trip begins. Lower part of the figure presents the charging power of the car during the day.
Three charging sessions are carried out: first one at the workplace and the following two at home. In this
way, the charging of thousands of respondents of NTS can be simulated and different types of further
analysis can be made to the simulated charging profiles.

Fig. 6.1. Example of the use of the NTS data for PHEV load modeling.

EV charging load has different impacts on different parts of the electricity system, and the impacts depend
on which part of the system is investigated. In further, impacts of EV charging load to the electricity
transmission grid, distribution networks and networks of real estates are discussed.

6.2.1 Transmission grid level

The Finnish and further North-European transmission grids and North-European electricity market have
extremely high interdependency with each other. The load flows of the lines and other components in the
grid depend on the wholesale electricity markets and vice versa. Figure 6.2 shows real total hourly
electricity consumption of Finland over an example day 7.1.2016. During the day, the load was at very high
level. In addition to the real consumption, there is also a hypothetical case of the consumption with
additional one million PHEVs charging during the day. The charging curve was produced using the
methodology described above and assuming non-controlled (“dumb”) charging power of 3.5 kW at homes,
workplaces and public parking places. It can be seen that in this specific case, one million PHEVs would
raise the consumption levels by roughly for some hundreds of MWs. Considering the large number of

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PHEVs and the required time scale to have such high amount of PHEVs on the roads, the impact on the
total load level is quite modest. In addition, if the charging is made overnight, the increase in peak power
could be much smaller or even zero.

Fig. 6.3. Example of the impact of 1,000,000 PHEVs charging load on electricity consumption in Finland.

6.2.2 Distribution grid

Many Finnish DSOs have shown interest in the investigation of the impacts of charging EVs in their
networks. Large proportion of the distribution networks are fairly old and also due to increased reliability
requirements significant network renovation work will be carried out by many companies in the following
years. As the construction of distribution networks is a long-term investment, i.e. the lines and other
components will probably be in use for many decades, the DSOs have to somehow assess or approximate
the long-term changes in the loads of the networks in the planning process. To assess today the impacts of
EVs on a distribution network, the DSO has model the charging load of the (far) future.

As mentioned in above, there are plenty of different charging scenarios, because there are plenty of
variables affecting on what kind of a load the charging of large EV fleet would be in the future. We do not
know what kind of charging powers are used, how big battery capacities there will be, are autonomous
cars going to be a big thing, how the non-EV electric consumption is going to change etc. Also, an important
thing to remember is that distribution networks are also different. Rural networks are different in nature
compared to urban networks. In addition, there are quite big differences in the distribution systems
between different countries. This all means that there is no single answer to the question “what is the
impact of EV charging load to the distribution grids”. To get a general impression, it can be said that in
order to have large impacts on the distribution grids, the number of EVs has to be big and/or the charging
powers used have to be large. It would often require tens of percent of the cars to be EVs in order to be
forced in extensive manner to prematurely replace distribution transformers with bigger ones or replace
lines prematurely with ones with bigger cross-section [Rautiainen15].

In Finland, if a DSO wants to assess network impacts of different EV scenarios, that is something which can
be made quite straightforwardly. In Finnish DSOs, sophisticated network information systems (NIS) are
used. DSOs typically have the model for their whole distribution network starting from network’s
connection points to the transmission system all way to the network connections point of customers. In
addition, there is a long tradition on the use of statistical load modeling and statistical power flow
calculation in distribution networks. Presently, electricity consumption is measured by smart meters and

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modeled in hourly basis in Finland. In the future, the measurement/modeling interval will be 15 minutes
and perhaps even shorter.

The idea of statistical load modeling and power flow calculation is the following [Mutanen17]. Electricity
consumption of every customer (group) for every hour is modeled as a statistical distribution: expected
value of the power 𝑃 (average power during an hour) at given hour 𝑡: E(𝑃(𝑡)) and standard deviation of
the power 𝑃 of the hour 𝑡: 𝑠(𝑡). It is typically assumed that the power at the hour is normal distributed.
When the statistical power flow calculation is made, you choose a calculation probability (corresponding
with the risk level of your calculation) 𝑝 (%).Then you calculate for each network branch (e.g. line section)
the magnitude of highest electrical current which can flow through the branch with the selected calculation
probability 𝑝. In this you need the statistical load models. This is illustrated in Fig. 6.4. As an example, one
could select a calculation probability to be 90%. Let us say that we want to know that is the network branch
AB in too high load. Statistical power flow calculation gives as an output a current value of the branch 𝐼𝐴𝐵
so that with the probability of 90% the real current of a branch during the calculation hour is ≤ 𝐼𝐴𝐵 . This
means that there is a 10% chance that the real current in the branch is > 𝐼𝐴𝐵 . Using this calculated value
𝐼𝐴𝐵 the network designer can for example compare 𝐼𝐴𝐵 to the maximum current value of the line branch.
This kind of calculation is easy to make and can be made if there are proper statistical load models. In this
way, the maximum currents (and related voltage levels) in the whole network can be calculated with a
certain probability. This kind of load modeling and load flow calculation is widely used among Finnish DSOs.
If the reader wants to understand more on the statistical load flow calculation methodology, one can read
[Mutanen17] and [Rautiainen12].
ZBC IBC C
PC ~ N(E(PC),sPC2)
A ZAB IAB B

ZBD IBD D

PD ~ N(E(PD),sPD2)
Fig. 6.4. Part of a distribution network including four nodes, three line branches and two customers.

Research paper [Rautiainen12] presents a methodology to construct charging load models of EVs for the
purposes of the statistical load flow calculations using the national travel survey data. Figure 6.5 shows
examples of these kind of load curves. These kinds of curves can be used in standard statistical power flow
calculations in the network information systems or Finnish DSOs, but also in other types of network power
flow calculation methods like different Monte Carlo simulations. Considering the example of Fig. 6.4, one
could place these EV charging load models to nodes C and D and calculate the electrical state of the network
corresponding to a certain calculation probability.

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Fig. 6.5. Two examples of statistical load models based on [Rautiainen12]. Both of the curve sets describe
the expected value (“Mean”) and the standard deviations (“Std”) of the hourly charging energies of an EV
on workdays (Wd), Saturdays (Sa) and Sundays (Su) with two different charging powers (3 kW and 10
kW).

It was previously mentioned that in order to have significant network impacts with EV charging, a large
number of EVs is probably needed. However, in some special cases even a small number of EVs can cause
some problems in the distribution grids. Figure 6.6 presents a small part of a real distribution network. The
network part includes one small distribution transformer feeding six detached house customers. The size
of the distribution transformer is 30 kVA, and the six customers have a network connection of 3 × 25 A
corresponding to peak power of about 17 kW. This means that every customer has a possibility to draw 17
kW power from the grid. The electricity consumption of the customers is very low, but if a few of them
would buy EVs and charge them at homes with charging power of e.g. 10 kW, the distribution transformer
could be easily overloaded and should be replaced with a bigger one. Another problem is that if the EVs
use one-phase chargers, which is very common in commercial EVs, and if the chargers would be connected
to the same network phase, the load of the network would be highly unbalanced and the feeding phase
could even be overloaded.

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 Fig. 6.6. Example network: a small distribution transformer feeding six household customers.

6.2.3 Networks of real estates

The electricity networks of real estates have different EV charging related challenges compared to the
distribution and transmission networks. Electricity consumers have a network connection of a certain size,
for example 3 × 25 A in a typical Finnish detached house. In many cases, EV is exceptionally high-power
load in the networks of real estates. A challenge in real estates is that it is difficult to decide how large
charging current/power can be used so that there would not be problems with the grid. Figure 6.7.
illustrates this problem in a domestic network. In the domestic network, there are main fuses, say 3 × 25
A, and conventional electric appliances like oven, electric heaters, sauna stove (very common in Finland),
water boiler, refrigerator, freezer, coffee maker, electronics etc. If the house owner buys an EV, he/she has
to decide how big charging current can be used in order to avoid exceeding the current limit of the main
fuses. The free current capacity of a phase at the network connection point is the current limit (e.g. 25 A)
minus the current of the conventional appliances connected to the phase. Here, unity power factor is
assumed. At some points of time, the total load of the conventional appliances is very low and therefore
the free capacity is large, but at some points of time, the conventional loads take large power and the free
capacity is very low. In Finland, the sauna stove is typically a highly restricting appliance. Sauna stoves have
typically nominal power of 6–10 kW, which is big load. Sauna stoves are typically 2- or 3-phase loads, and
for example the 10 kW 3-phase sauna stove takes about 3 × 15 A current. In those cases, there is not plenty
of room for EV charging.

Fig. 6.7. Domestic electricity network with conventional loads and an EV charging station.

One way to solve the previous problem is to use a simple control method in which charging current of the
EV is continuously adjusted in accordance with the free current capacity of the phase in order to keep the

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total current below the maximum current limit. Fig. 6.8 illustrates the main principle of the control method.
The idea of the control method is that the total current of the network connection is measured in real-
time, and the charging current of the EV is adjusted based on the free current capacity of the network
connection. This kind of control is possible in a mode 3 charging in accordance of the standard IEC 61851-1,
which defines that the charging station can restrict and adjust the maximum AC charging current. The
standard is highly respected and is applied practically in all commercial EVs. The control method can be
applied for one-, two- and three-phase charging.

Fig. 6.8. Domestic electricity network with conventional loads and an EV charging station.

The previous charging current control method has been demonstrated with commercial equipment and
the results can be found in [Rautiainen16]. In the demonstration, one-phase EV charger was brought to a
real detached house, and the charging current was controlled in order to keep the phase current below the
rating of the main fuse. In the demonstration, the charging station was 3 × 32 A AC charging station from
Ensto, and the EV was Audi A3 e-tron plug-in hybrid EV. The EV has a one-phase charger with 15 A maximum
current. Further, phase current (one second average RMS values) of one phase (𝐼𝑏𝑎𝑠𝑒 ) of a real Finnish
detached house with main fuse size of 3 × 25 A was measured. After this, the maximum charging current
(𝐼𝑚𝑎𝑥 ) of the EV was adjusted during the charging process in real-time to be 𝐼𝑚𝑎𝑥 = 25 A − 𝐼𝑏𝑎𝑠𝑒 . In
practice, the maximum current was adjusted using serial port communication to the commercial charging
station based on the measurement.

The results of the demonstration are shown in Figure 6.9. In the figure, the following quantities are shown
as a function of time: the base current (other loads besides the EV) of one phase of the detached house,
the calculated maximum charging current limit, the measured charging current of the EV and the total
current of one phase of the house (sum of the base current and the charging current). In all the subfigures,
a horizontal dash line represents the 25 A phase current limit. One can see that the variations in the base
currents are very high. The computational maximum current limit was given to the charging station and
further to the EV, but as the EV has only 1 × 15 A charger, the charger takes 15 A at the highest. It can be
seen from the results, that the charger reacts rapidly to the changes in the maximum charging current limit.
One can also see from the figure that there are some points of time where the 25 A total current has been
exceeded. This is because the limited speed of the charging current control system. When a rapid increase
in the base load occurs (in the Figure, due to on/off switching of electric sauna stove), it takes some time
from the charger to decrease the current. However, the exceeding times are very short, some seconds at
the maximum. Overall it can be said, that the control system works very nicely also in real life.

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 Fig. 6.9. Test results of dynamic charging current control.

Another challenge in the networks of real estates is related to apartment houses, public parking places and
other places where there are many EVs charging at the same time. This is illustrated in Fig. 6.10. If there
are many EVs charging simultaneously using high powers/currents, the total peak powers/currents of the
cables feeding the charging station group or in the network connection can rise to an extremely high level,
which leads to need for very thick cables and/or large main fuse sizes/large network connection. Taking
into account that these kinds of situations can be very rare in many cases, this is not desirable from the
cost-effectiveness point-of-view. It might therefore be reasonable to control the total currents of a
charging station group. This kind of load control can again be made using the control possibilities of mode
3 charging. The idea would be similar with previous example: the total currents in different phases of the
feeder feeding the charging station group are measured and the maximum currents of the charging stations
are controlled in order to keep the charging currents below the appropriate limits. An example of a load
control algorithm can be found in [Rautiainen14].

Fig. 6.10. Load control system of a charging station group.

Power quality issues should also be taken into account in the networks of real estates, especially if multiple
charging stations or high power charging stations are used. Relevance of power quality issues depend very
much on the quality of the current drawn by the chargers. Figure 6.11. shows an example of current
waveforms and harmonic amplitude spectra of Nissan e-NV200 (6 kW charger) charging with different
charging current levels. It can be seen that the waveform and harmonic spectrum get worse when the
charging power is decreased from the nominal value. This is because of the properties of the power
electronics of the charger. For the DC chargers, the power quality is dependent on the how the power

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electronics is designed. If large harmonic currents are drawn by multiple charging stations, the network
connection of the charging site should be strong enough in order to avoid harmonic distortion to the grid.

Fig. 6.11. Current waveforms and harmonic spectrum of the Nissan e-NV200 onboard charger
[Supponen16].

6.3 EVs as active resources for the power systems

So far, we have discussed on the EVs in the power systems mostly as charging loads. EVs could be used also
for active resources for the needs of the electricity grids. As discussed earlier on the applications of energy
storages, the big picture is that the need for flexibility in power systems is increasing, and this is largely due
to the increase of renewable energy sources in the power system. In a power system, the possible
“sources” of flexibility are the following (cf. section 4.2):
 Flexible energy production
 Demand response (DR)
 Increasing investments in electricity transmission and distribution networks
 Energy storages.

Electric vehicles can be used as demand response resources or as energy storages for the needs of the
power systems. This sets some technical requirements for the EVs and the infrastructure, but it also
requires market mechanisms including some incentives for the EV owners. If the EV owner would allow
his/her EV to be used for the purposes of the power system, the EV owner should have some kind of a
compensation for that. A general view is that when distributed energy resources are collected together
and offered to the different electricity market places, like reserve markets, a some kind of an aggregator
entity is needed which would aggregate the resources together. The aggregator could make contracts with
different players in the field. Fig. 6.12. illustrates three different option how an aggregator would make a
contract in order get an EV to “flexibility market”. An aggregator could make contracts with the EV owner
directly, charging station owner/operator or real estate/household owners. In addition to contractual
relation, the aggregator could also carry out also the operational communication with the EV. The
communication could include things like control commands, control parameters and/or different
supervision related data. Some of the control actions could be made based on local information like
frequency of the power grid or some kind of timing, but in these cases communication could be used to set
different control parameters. The three “architectures”, which are illustrated in Fig. 6.12, differ from each

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other in their ability to produce different services for different market actors, as the control and other
information flows between participants are different in different architectures.

a) b) c)
Fig. 6.12. In order to get an EV to the flexibility market, an aggregator could make contracts with a) EV
owner directly, b) charging station owner/operator and c) real estate/household owners.

In the first architecture (Fig. 6.12a), there is a contract and communication between the aggregator and
the car regardless of the location of the car. This would require communication and charging control
electronics in the car, which means that either the car manufacturer has to install the electronics or the
electronics have to be provided and installed by some other parties. In this architecture, the location of the
contracted controllable resource might change. This means that the car can use many different charging
stations and the charging stations can be connected to different DSOs’ networks. Thus, the use of this
architecture to provide services for a certain DSO would require geolocation data. On the other hand, this
architecture fits very well for providing for example reserve services for a TSO as the TSOs system is typically
nationwide and the EVs will be charged mostly in the TSO’s network.

In the second architecture (Fig. 6.12b), there would be communication between aggregator and the
charging station. The actions which could be possible to realize in the car depend on the type of the
charging interface of the car and properties of the charging station. The offered services must be fitted
with needs of the charging customer. For example, if a customer buys charging service, the charging cannot
be necessarily interrupted for a long time or restricted too much without customer acceptance. For
example, the charging station owner could promise the charging power to be for example between 70–
100% of the maximum power, and this variation interval would be used to produce the “flexibility services”.
In this architecture, the location of the controllable resource is constant and connected to a certain DSO’s
network. Thus, the use of this architecture to provide services for a certain DSO is very straightforward.

The third architecture (Fig. 6.12c) is very different compared to the previous ones. In this case, the contract
would be made with a real estate owner and the control commands would be sent to a home automation
(HA) or building automation (BA) system. Now there are many different types of resources, which could be
controlled in very different ways. HA or BA could also decide what resources it uses and how. The features
and functionalities depend on the characteristics and properties of HA and the type of the resources. In
this architecture, the location of the controllable resource is again constant and connected to certain DSO’s
network.

As mentioned above, EVs can be used either as controllable load or as energy storages in order to provide
flexibility to the power system. In the following, these are discussed more extensively.

112
6.4 EVs as controllable loads (“smart charging”)
“EV as a controllable load”, “smart charging” and “demand response with EVs” often mean pretty much
the same. Smart charging of EVs has been somewhat a hyped concept during the past few years. In this
course, smart or intelligent charging is defined to be charging behavior of an EV which is influenced by other
targets besides the target to charge the battery in order to fulfill the expected energy needs of the car. The
idea is that when an EV is charging, the charging power could be varied between 0 and the maximum power
to get some benefit. The EV owner could for example participate to the FCR-D market (see Section 4.3.1),
and when there is need to reduce consumption in the power system, the EV could decrease the charging
power or even stop the charging and make some money to the EV owner. In mode 3 charging, a maximum
charging current level is set for the car by the charging station, and the maximum level can be changed
during the charging process, as described in Section 5.2 and 6.2.3. In mode 4 charging the current and/or
power of the charger can be controlled by the charging station, but as mode 4 charging is in practice “fast”
charging, the people who are using these charging services, are probably not willing to stop or slow down
the charging very much, because they need the get the battery pack full as fast as possible.

6.5 EVs as energy storages for the grid

In Section 4, applications of energy storages were discussed. A fleet of EVs could be used as distributed
storage system for the needs of the power grid, and many of the storage applications discussed in Section
4 are possible at least in principle. Storage operation of EVs is typically divided into two classes (with silly
acronyms):
 Vehicle-to-grid (V2G): EV is feeding energy to the public electricity grid.
 Vehicle-to-home (V2H): EV is feeding energy to certain local not-public network, typically a
household.

EV battery packs could store relatively large amounts of electrical energy and the power capacity would be
quite large. For example, if there were one million EVs in Finland and if 50 % of them were available for
energy storage use and if the vehicles were simultaneously able to discharge 7 kWh per vehicle on average,
the total energy capacity would be 3.5 GWh. If the discharging power were 3.5 kW per vehicle, the total
discharge power capacity would be 1.75 GW. This would correspond to two-hour full power output of a
very big power plant.

In order to enable the use of EV as an energy storage, the electrical interface of EV must capable of
delivering power to both of the directions: from the grid and to the grid. There are two basic options to do
this: through AC or DC interface. This is illustrated in Fig. 6.13. The AC option means that the bidirectional
power electronic converter is located inside the car, and the charging station would offer only the
connection to the distribution grid. This means that the EV manufacturer should put the bi-directional
charger to the EV. The DC option means that the bi-directional charger would be located in the charging
station, and the bidirectional station would be directly connected to the battery pack of the car. This would
further mean that the bidirectional power electronics investment should be made by the
charging/discharging infrastructure owner/operator. Today, all the commercial or near commercial V2G
and V2H solutions are based on DC interface. The standardized Mode 3 (e.g. “Type 2”) and Mode 4 (e.g.
“CHAdeMO” and “CCS 2”) physical interfaces allow bi-directional power flow. In addition to the
bidirectional converter, also the software in both EV and in the charging/discharging infrastructure side
have to support bidirectional power flow.

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 AC voltage
Bi- and current
directional
AC ”charging
station” +
–

DC voltage
Bi- and current
directional
DC ”charging
station” +
–

Fig. 6.13. The two choices for electrical interface for using EV as an energy storage: AC and DC interfaces.

The needs of the EV users/owners should not be forgotten. The they have certain preferences with relation
to the use of the car. The vehicle should be charged to full charge at some stage. If the battery pack was
“unexpectedly” discharged during the charging process, the state-of-charge (SOC) of the battery pack
would temporarily be decreased and the vehicle users would have to accept this.

One interesting energy storage application is V2H (vehicle-to-home) based idea that EVs would be used as
a back-up power in households. The battery pack would be then used as an energy storage feeding a small
network island such as a single household during an outage in the grid. Also, in the case of a PHEV, the
internal combustion engine might also be used to produce electricity from liquid fuel. The energy capacity
of the battery pack is very limited which means that all the energy needs of for example a detached house
cannot be covered for a long time. However, if the largest loads such as electric heaters and storage water
heater were switched off, the sufficiency of the battery capacity would be much higher. If only a very
limited amount of loads such as some lighting and maybe cellular phone charging would be allowed, the
battery capacity would offer back-up power capability for a very long time.

Fig. 6.14 shows average hourly energies during different types of days of 1000 real Finnish electricity
consumers. The customers of the figure are of different types and customers with electric heating are also
included. This simple illustrative figure shows that only a few kilowatt-hours could be enough for quite a
long time especially if some of the largest loads were disconnected from the network. To realize the EV
back-up power service, some special equipment and systems would be needed. Fig. 6.15 illustrates some
features of such a system. One requirement is an isolation switch, which is used to disconnect the
household or from the public distribution network. This isolation has to be made because a single EV cannot
feed the whole neighborhood. As the EV would work as the only power source during back-up power
operation, the feeding equipment has to include e.g. all the necessary safety related functionalities (like
fault current feeding capability) than the electricity grid has. In practice, a domestic back-up power system
can be bought for example in Japan where EVs can be used as back-up power using the DC charging
interface.

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 Fig. 6.14. Average hourly energies during different types of days of a 1000 real electicity customers.

Isolation HA
switch Load reduction
LV L1

network
L2
L3
The loads of the
of a DNO
N
PE
household

3-phase network 1-phase network

connection connection

Fig. 6.15. Realization of the customer back-up power service.

The use of the car’s battery packs as energy storages for the power system inflicts costs for the car owners.
Additional charging-discharging cycles pose additional stress to batteries and decrease their cyclic lifetime.
The battery degradation cost of discharging a certain amount of energy from a battery pack and recharging
the same amount of energy back to the battery depends on the type of the battery pack. Fig. 6.16 presents
a simple calculation concerning battery degradation costs as a function of cyclic lifetime and battery
investment cost. The battery degradation cost represents a cost per stored energy (in €/kWh) which is
caused by cyclic lifetime loss when discharging a battery pack from a certain state by a certain amount and
then charging back to the initial state. Cyclic lifetime is presented as a number of a certain type of charge-
discharge cycles (cycle depth of 100% or something else). It can be seen that to obtain a battery
degradation cost of a few cents/kWh the cyclic lifetime must be very high and/or the investment cost has
to be very low.

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 Fig. 6.16. Battery degradation costs as a function of cyclic lifetime and battery investment cost.

There is however, another approach to the EV battery degradation costs. Let us consider life cycle costs by
means of a simple example. An EV has an effective battery capacity of 60 kWh, which corresponds roughly
to a 300 km electric driving range. The battery pack has a cyclic lifetime of 2,000 cycles, which corresponds
to a total electric driving range of 600,000 km. If the average distance driven daily would about 50 km,
which is roughly 18,000 km/a, and if all of the driving would be made using electricity, the total electric
driving range would be “consumed” in 25 years on average. The lifetimes of EVs and especially calendar
lifetimes of today’s lithium-ion batteries are significantly less than 25 years. This means that over the course
of an EV’s lifetime, part of the cyclic battery capacity would not be used anyhow. From this point of view,
the battery degradation cost of a moderate amount of charge-discharge cycles can be considered
practically zero. This assumes that there is no significant EV battery after-car-life market. There have been
some ideas about the possible use of batteries in power system applications after having been used in cars,
but safety and reliability characteristics of the used batteries may have been decreased significantly during
the EV use. Thus, the secondary battery market can be quite small also in the future. This, however,
depends hugely on how the EV manufacturers have designed their battery life and replacement related
business models.

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