Control of an energy storage and provisioning system is disclosed, including a method in which electrical power is received from a power generator in an energy storage system having energy storage cells. Each of the energy storage cells has switching elements selectively operable to connect with terminals of other energy storage cells. The method further includes determining a condition of a number of the energy storage cells via electrical measurement; and grouping, by controlling operation of the switching elements, a subset of the energy storage cells into a topology configuration based on a condition of individual cells of the subset of energy storage cells. The method further includes storing the received electrical power into the subset of energy storage cells arranged into the topology configuration to optimize storage of the electrical power received from the power generator.

Management system for a rechargeable energy storage device in an electric vehicle and corresponding method is disclosed. The rechargeable energy storage device has one or more battery packs each having a plurality of modules with one or more respective cells. A respective module management unit is embedded in each of the plurality of modules through respective microcircuits and configured to determine one or more local parameters. A supervisory controller is configured for two-way communication with the respective module management unit. The supervisory controller is configured to receive the local parameters, determine one or more global pack parameters based in part on the local parameters and transmit the global pack parameters back to the respective management unit. The supervisory controller is configured to control operation of the rechargeable energy storage device based in part on the global pack parameters and the local parameters.

Disclosed are systems and methods for improved cell-balancing circuits, back-up failure detection circuits and alarm extension for cells and modules of an energy storage system. One aspect of the invention comprises an energy storage device cell balancing apparatus. The apparatus comprises a first and a second dissipative component connected in series. The first dissipative component and the second dissipative component are coupled to an energy storage cell. The second dissipative component monitors a voltage of the energy storage cell and, if the voltage is at or above a reference voltage, the second dissipative component conducts a discharging current through the first and second dissipative components. The first dissipative component maintains a voltage drop across the first dissipative component that is proportional to the voltage of the energy storage cell. The second dissipative component maintains a constant voltage drop across the second dissipative component when conducting the discharging current.

One or more battery sub-modules are selected by obtaining at least one voltage from each battery sub-module and selecting based at least in part on the obtained voltages. The battery sub-modules are electrically connected in series in order to provide power to a primary load. Each battery sub-module includes a plurality of cells electrically connected in series and each battery sub-module further includes a battery management system that monitors the cells in that battery sub-module. Those battery management systems in the selected sub-modules are turned off so that the battery management systems in the selected sub-modules do not consume power at least temporarily from the cells in the selected sub-modules while (1) the battery sub-modules are not providing power to the primary load and (2) the battery sub-modules are not being charged.

An apparatus and a method of equalizing a battery module supplies an equalization current to a battery module which is diagnosed to have abnormality via an equalization current supply circuit when an abnormality is generated in a state of charge (SoC) of one or more battery modules, and equalize the SoC of the one or more battery modules.

A battery control device that controls a battery assembly includes a first determining unit that determines whether a voltage difference between minimum and maximum values of OCVs of battery cells constituting the battery assembly and having an SOC-OCV characteristic curve including a flat region is equal to or larger than a predetermined voltage value, a second determining unit that determines whether the OCV of each battery cell is lower than a lower-limit voltage of the flat region, or is equal to or higher than the lower-limit voltage and lower than an upper-limit voltage, or is higher than the upper-limit voltage, a controller that executes control selected from SOC raising control, SOC lowering control, and SOC keeping control of the battery cells, based on determination results of the first and second determining units, and a processor that homogenizes the SOCs of the battery cells controlled by the controller.

A battery operated hair dryer includes a battery management and control module to control how to efficiently dry a user's hair while maintaining the health and charge of the battery.

Provided is a battery pack in which the voltage of each battery cell is monitored using an inexpensive general-purpose microcomputer. A battery pack comprises: a plurality of battery cells connected in series; a plurality of voltage detection units which detect the voltage of each of the battery cells; and a microcomputer which measures the voltages of the battery cells from the output of each of the voltage detection units. Switch control circuits for switching on or off the outputs from the voltage detection units to the microcomputer are respectively arranged on each of the voltage detection units. Voltage divider circuits dividing the detected voltages into voltages lower than or equal to the power supply voltage of a control unit are arranged on the output sides of the voltage detection units. The microcomputer inputs the voltages divided by the voltage divider circuits and measures the voltages of the battery cells.

A method for capacity expansion of an energy storage system and an energy storage system are provided. The method is applied to a controller in the energy storage system. The controller acquires a value of a characteristic parameter of a to-be-added second energy storage device as a target characteristic value. Then, the controller controls a charge/discharge power converter to charge or discharge first energy storage devices until a proximity of a value of a characteristic parameter of at least one first energy storage device to the target characteristic value is less than a preset proximity. Finally, a signal indicating that the second energy storage device is allowed to be connected into the energy storage system is generated and outputted to notify an operator.

Embodiments are disclosed of an electronic power conversion apparatus. The apparatus includes a first circuit comprising a first plurality of bidirectional switches coupled in parallel and a second circuit comprising a second plurality of bidirectional switches coupled in parallel. The apparatus further includes a power converter circuit coupling the first and the second circuit. The apparatus includes a control circuit operatively coupled to the first and second plurality of bidirectional switches. The control circuit controls a state of each of the first and second plurality of bidirectional switches.