Battery management system heralds revolution for energy storage

This new class of ‘intelligent’ battery management systems (BMS) from Brill Power boasts breakthrough technology which, says the company, will transform the cost and performance of energy storage systems by increasing battery life by up to 60 %, enhancing storage capacity by up to 129 %, increasing systems uptime and driving down the lifetime operating costs for energy storage systems.

The BrillMS B62 Premium battery management system shuns the compromises inherent in the two existing categories of BMS.

These energy storage solutions relied upon either passive balancing or costlier active balancing options in order for batteries to operate safely and efficiently.

Brill Power says its intelligent battery management system represents a paradigm shift forward for battery performance without reliance on advances in materials or cell chemistry. 

At the heart of this new, intelligent approach to battery management is a solution to the challenges of performance, lifetime and safety of series-connected battery cells that have previously been defined by the weakest cells in the pack.

Brill Power has solved this problem through a patented approach to optimised cell-level current control, and it has designed the hardware and software to implement it.

Proprietary algorithms determine the state of health and power capability of every parallel-connected cell block in the battery and novel control circuitry regulates the electric current accordingly.

Stronger cell blocks are exposed to higher currents and weaker ones to lower currents. This ensures that every joule of energy is extracted from each individual cell during every discharge cycle.

As a result, no single cell limits the energy storage capacity, power capability or lifetime of the battery system.

Three game-changing benefits are claimed by Brill Power.

Firstly, levels of reliability and uptime are drastically enhanced since faulty battery cells and modules can be bypassed and replaced while the battery system remains fully operational. Secondly, with regulated battery output voltage, the battery can also be directly connected to other power sources or loads in the system, such as solar photovoltaic arrays or electric vehicle chargers without the need for a costly DC/DC converter or charge controller.

And in addition to these multiple benefits, Brill Power’s BrillMS B62 Premium BMS enhances safety through cell-level protection that prevents currents exceeding safe limits and any cells approaching hazardous conditions can be isolated.

With the US Department of Energy already projecting that energy storage solutions will exceed 300GWh by 2030, the merits of driving performance and efficiency into localised energy solutions have been put into sharp focus in recent weeks with exponential rises in wholesale energy prices on global markets. Battery-based energy storage solutions in turn enable renewable sources such as solar and wind to be more dependably used in both domestic and commercial contexts.

The BrillMS B62 Premium is the first in a series of novel BMS product launches from Brill Power intended to transform both the stationary energy storage market as well as the motive application of battery cells in electric vehicles.