Development of an Efficient Hybrid Energy Storage System (HESS) for Electric and Hybrid Electric Vehicles

Abstract

The popularity of the internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles has contributed to global warming problem and degradation of air quality around the world. Furthermore, the vehicles’ massive demand on gas has played a role in the depletion of fossil fuel reserves and the considerable rise in the gas price over the past twenty years. Those existing challenges force the auto-industry to move towards the technology development of vehicle electrification. An electrified vehicle is driven by one or more electric motors. And the electricity comes from the onboard energy storage system (ESS). Currently, no single type of green energy source could meet all the requirements to drive a vehicle. A hybrid energy storage system (HESS), as a combination of battery and ultra-capacitor units, is expected to improve the overall performance of vehicles’ ESS. This thesis focuses on the design of HESS and the development of a HESS prototype for electric vehicles (EVs) and hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs).

Battery unit (BU), ultra-capacitor unit (UC) and a DC/DC converter interfacing BU and UC are the three main components of HESS. The research work first reviews literatures regarding characteristics of BU, UC and power electronic converters. HESS design is then conducted based on the considerations of power capability, energy efficiency, size and cost optimization. Besides theoretical analysis, a HESS prototype is developed to prove the principles of operation as well. The results from experiment are compared with those from simulation.