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Variable Two Stage Rate-Limit Control for

Battery Energy Storage System
CONFERENCE PAPER NOVEMBER 2015

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Sathish Kumar Kollimalla

Abhisek Ukil

Indian Institute of Technology Madras

Nanyang Technological University

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Variable Two Stage Rate-Limit Control for Battery

Energy Storage System
Sathish Kumar Kollimalla, Member, IEEE

Abhisek Ukil, Senior Member, IEEE

School of Electrical Engineering,

Nanyang Technological University Singapore.
skollimalla@ntu.edu.sg

School of Electrical Engineering,

Nanyang Technological University Singapore.
aukil@ntu.edu.sg

H. B. Gooi, Senior Member, IEEE

Ujjal Manandhar, Student Member, IEEE

School of Electrical Engineering,

Nanyang Technological University Singapore.
ehbgooi@ntu.edu.sg

School of Electrical Engineering,

Nanyang Technological University Singapore.
ujjal001@ntu.edu.sg

AbstractThe present work deals with a new energy management control scheme to regulate the battery discharge/charge
rates (rate-limit) for a hybrid energy storage system (HESS),
consisting of battery and supercapacitor. In general, batteries
are used to supply slow transient (or steady state) load demand,
due to its inherent properties of low power density and high
energy density. The state of charge (SOC) of the battery will
depend on the load demand value, rate limit, the settling time
and path followed by the battery (trajectory) to fulfill the load
demand. In the proposed control scheme, trajectory of the
battery is controlled such that, the rate limit and the SOC are
kept within the limits, while getting optimized. This scheme is
adaptable for different power requirements and features variable
rate limit control. Furthermore, the scheme proposes two stage
rate-limit control. The control scheme is described in detail and
demonstrated using MATLAB simulation results.
Index TermsBattery, Energy storage system, Hybrid energy
storage system, Rate-limit control, State of charge, Supercapacitor.

I. I NTRODUCTION
Renewable energy sources like solar, wind, etc. are gaining a
lot of importance in power generation due to their eco-friendly
nature and abundance. These renewable energy sources are
interfaced to the grid through power electronic converters.
However, the power generation from these sources are intermittent in nature. Therefore, a generation-demand mismatch
always exists, which leads to the power quality issues. These
problems can be solved by introducing the energy storage
system (ESS).
Energy storage system is playing a very important role in
microgrid by solving the problems like energy management,
peak shaving, power quality, load leveling, stability, voltage
regulation and uninterrupted power supply. Batteries and supercapacitors (SC) are most commonly used ESS technologies.
Batteries have high energy density but low power density
[1][3]. Therefore, under severe load fluctuations, batteries
cannot respond immediately and will be under high stress. It
is reflected as increase in the charging and discharging cycles,
which leads to reduction in battery life span [4]. However,

batteries can very well be used as achieve large scale and longtime availability energy storage system. The supercapacitors
are new form of energy storage, storing energy by means
of static charge. Compared to the batteries, the SC possess
high power density but low energy density. Hence, SCs can
be used to satisfy the quick load fluctuations [5], [6]. The
relative properties of the battery and the supercapacitor are
shown in Table I.
TABLE I
BATTERY V ERSUS S UPERCAPACITOR P ERFORMANCE [2]

Specific energy density

Specific power density
Cycle life
Charge/discharge efficiency
Fast charge time
Discharge time

Lead acid battery

10-100 (Wh/kg)
< 1000 (W/kg)
1000
70-85 %
1-5 hr
0.3-3 hr

Supercapacitor
1-10 (Wh/kg)
< 10000 (W/kg)
> 500000
85-98 %
0.3-30 sec
0.3-30 sec

Due to the low charge/discharge rates, the battery cannot

usually support rapidly fluctuating load demands, whereas the
supercapacitor can suppport due to its high power density.
However, the supercapacitor cannot usually support the load
demand for longer duration due to its low energy density,
while the battery can do that due to its high energy density.
Therefore, utilization of only one kind of ESS can hardly
meet both the requirements. An ideal energy storage system
should possess both high energy and power density capabilities. Therefore, the concept of hybrid energy storage system
(HESS) is gaining a lot of attention.
A variety of control strategies have been proposed in
literature [7][13], for controlling power sharing between
battery and supercapacitor. Authors in [7] have addressed the
advantages of adding a supercapacitor to a battery for wind
based system. Wei et al. in [8], presented a study which
shows that HESS lowers the battery cost and improves the
overall system efficiency. Authors in [9] demonstrated the
reduction in battery stresses by using supercapacitor. Authors
in [10], [11] reported analysis of battery lifetime extension

II. G ENERAL A NALYSIS OF HESS

Fig. 1 shows the conventional controller for HESS. The
control schemes maintain the grid voltage (Vo ) at its reference
value (Vref ). In this scheme, the output of the low-pass
filter is given as reference (IB ref ) to the battery converter,
whereas the the high frequency component which is obtained
by subtracting IB ref from total current (Itot ref ) is given as
reference (ISC ref ) to the supercapacitor converter. With this
controller, at any point of time the change in load demand
(PL ) is supplied by battery and/or supercapacitor, which can
be described by the following equation.
Itot_ref

Vref

where PB is power supplied by battery and PSC is power

supplied by supercapacitor. Typical linear response curves of
the battery and the supercapacitor for an increase in load
demand (PL ) are shown in Fig. 2. The area under these
Battery power
Power (W)

using supercapacitors for a small-scale wind-energy system.

Authors in [12] suggested to use energy storage system to
reduce the rate of change of power demanded from the source
due to highly dynamic loads. Ding et al. [13], proposed a
adaptive rate-limit control for batteries, to protect the primary
power source in the system from sudden load transients within
the constraints of the available stored energy.
The basic idea behind these controllers is that the battery
supports the slow transients and the supercapacitor supports
the fast transients. But the fundamental conventional controller
does not take care about charge/discharge rate (rate-limit)
and state of charge (SOC) of the battery. In conventional
controller, the charging/discharging of the battery is controlled
by the PI controller, which is nonlinear in nature. In that case,
the charging/discharging rates may cross the maximum value
allowed for the battery, thereby increasing the stress on the
battery. As a result, the battery life span decreases, which is
undesirable. Therefore, in the proposed control scheme the
charging/discharging rates are controlled to reduce the stress
levels on the battery to increase the life span. Further, the
path followed by the battery and rate-limit affects the energy
stored/discharged by it, which will affect the SOC. Therefore,
in the proposed control scheme, the path followed by the
battery is controlled by introducing a variable two stage ratelimit control, along with controlling the rate-limit. Therefore,
in this paper a new energy management control scheme is
proposed to regulate the charging/discharging rate (rate-limit)
and energy stored/discharged by the battery.
The remainder of the paper is organized as follows. In
Section II a general analysis of HESS is presented. The
proposed energy management control scheme is explained
in Section III. Simulation results are reported in Section IV.
Finally, conclusions are summarized in Section V.

Supercapacitor power

PSC
PL
PB
T
Time (sec)

Fig. 2. Battery and supercapacitor responses for increase in load demand.

curves gives the energy supplied by the respective ESS. For

example, the energy discharged by the battery is given by
Z T
PB (t)dt.
(2)
EB =
0

Depending on the energy levels, the SOC of the ESS increases

or decreases or remains within the limits. Therefore, the SOC
of the battery is expressed as a function of the energy,
SOC = f (EB ).

(3)

The energy stored/discharged in the battery depends on the

path (trajectory) followed in order to meet the specific load
demand.
PL1
PB1

PL

PB2

PL0
tM

EB1
EB2
EB0

IB_ref
Fig. 3. Battery response profiles: a) power, and b) energy.

ISC_ref

Vo

Fig. 1. Schematic of conventional control [5].

PL (t) = PB (t) + PSC (t),

(1)

Fig. 3 shows the two possible power profiles PB1 and PB2
followed by battery to meet the load demand of PL (= PL1
PL0 ). As shown in Fig. 3 (a), profile PB1 supplies the load
demand at linear rate depending on the load demand, as given
by
PL
mlin =
,
(4)
T

III. N EW C ONTROL S CHEME FOR C ONTROLLING ESS

In the proposed control scheme, the fundamental idea of
battery supplying the low frequency power component and
SC supplying high frequency power component is retained.
However, an additional feature called adaptive rate limit control is added to the conventional controller, as shown in Fig.
4. The idea of proposed rate limit control scheme is explained
Itot_ref

Vref

PB3

m2

m lin

PL

ax

m1

t1
tM

P1

Fig. 5. Proposed rate-limit control for battery.

Similarly, the energy stored by the power profile PB3 is given

as
EB

Area ofABCFA
(10)
1
1
t1 P1 + (T t1 )P1 + (T t1 )(PL P1 ).
=
2
2
The proposed control scheme is designed such that, the ratelimit m2 lies at the mid point of its extreme limits and the
energy delivered is average energy of power profiles PB1 and
PB2 . Therefore, the rate limit m2 and energy delivered by the
proposed profile PB3 is given as
m2 =

mlin + mmax
,
2

(11)

EB1 + EB2
.
(12)
2
The equilibrium point F (t1 , P1 ) satisfying the above two
conditions is given by

IB_ref

EB =

ISC_ref

Vo

PB1
PB2

where T is the settling time. Profile PB2 supplies the load

demand at zero discharge rate for a period of tM . After that,
it discharges at the maximum discharge rate (mmax ) allowed
for the battery by the manufacturers. The time period tM is
determined by the following relation
PL
.
(5)
tM = T
mmax
From Fig. 3 (a), one can observe that the profile PB1 is
supplying the load demand with less discharge rate. This
is variable (function of load demand and settling time) in
nature compared to the profile PB2 which is constant. Energy
delivered by the battery for these power profiles (EB1 , EB2 ) is
shown in Fig. 3 (b). It shows that, for a specific load demand
and settling time the energy delivered by the profile PB1 is
higher than profile PB2 . So, for these profiles, there exist a
tradeoff between discharge rate and energy discharged, i.e.
profile with less discharge rate delivers high energy, and vice
versa. Therefore, a new energy management control scheme
is proposed to optimize the rate-limit as well as the energy.

t1 =

2(P EB 21 m2 T 2 )
,
P m2 T

(13)

P1 =

m2 (P 2EB )
+ P,
P m2 T

(14)

P 2T tM
,
2 T (T tM )

(15)

Fig. 4. Schematic of modified conventional control.

by inserting a new power profile (PB3 ) with variable two

stage rate-limit (m1 , m2 ), in between the profiles PB1 and
PB2 as shown in Fig. 5. Here the concept is explained for
increase in load demand, i.e., discharging the battery. The
same explanation is valid for decrease in load demand, i.e.,
charging the battery. The power profile PB1 follows the path
AC with rate-limit of mlin , profile PB2 follows the path AEC
with rate-limit of mmax and profile PB3 follows the path AFC
with rate-limits of m1 and m2 . The range of these rate limits
are given as

where
m2 =

0 < m1 < mlin

(6)

P
(2T tM ).
(16)
4
From (13) and (14) the rate limit m1 can be calculated as
given
P1
m1 =
.
(17)
t1

mlin < m2 < mmax

(7)

IV. S IMULATION R ESULTS

The energy stored by the power profile PB1 is given as

1
EB1 = Area ofACB = T PL .
2
The energy stored by the power profile PB2 is given as
1
EB2 = Area ofECB = (T tM )PL .
2

(8)

(9)

EB =

To demonstrate the proposed control scheme let us make

the following assumptions:
1) both the charging and discharging rates of the battery
are equal,
2) the maximum allowed charge/discharge rate of the battery system is 9 kW/sec,

PB1

3) the positive polarity is used for indicating discharging

and negative polarity is used for indicating charging of
the battery,
4) the difference in load demand and battery power is
supplied by supercapacitor, PSC (t) = PL (t) PB (t),
5) power electronic converters are perfectly tuned to track
the reference powers.
The proposed control scheme is validated for step changes in
load demand and variations in settling time.
A. Study of Change in Load Demand
In this study, the load demand is increased and decreased
while keeping the settling time (T ) constant at 1 sec. Fig. 6
shows the simulation results for step increase in load demand.
It demonstrates the different possible power profiles of the
battery satisfying eq. (11), for the increased load demand of
5 kW. For this particular case, the linear (profile PB1 ) and
the maximum (profile PB2 ) discharge rates are 5 kW/s and
9 kW/s respectively, and the corresponding discharged energy
values are 2.5 kW-s and 1.39 kW-s respectively. The discharge
rate m2 is determined using (11), which is equal to 7 kW/s.
The rate-limit m1 is varied from zero to mlin , while keeping
the m2 = 7 kW/s constant to understand the power profiles
and energy discharged, few of them are shown in Fig. 6. Each
power profile discharges the power at different energy levels
for the same load demand. Among them the profile which
satisfies the energy criteria given by (16), is chosen as the
optimized solution. The equilibrium point (t1 , P1 ) satisfying
the rate limit and energy criteria (m2 = 7 kW/s, EB = 1.94
kW-s) is determined as (0.44 s, 1.11 kW).
PB1

PB3 (Proposed)

PB2

Other

PB3

PB2

Fig. 7. Response of battery for change in load demand.

PB2 is constant at 9 kW/s. Further, the maximum rate-limit

of the profile PB3 (proposed scheme) is not exceeding its
maximum charge/discharge rate allowed by the manufacturer.
With this new approach the energy charged/discharged by the
battery is less than that of profile PB1 . It is further observed
that with increase in load demand, time taken by the battery
(T t1 ) to charge/discharge the power with rate-limit m2 also
increases, whereas the time taken (t1 ) decreases with rate-limit
of m1 . It indicates that as the load demand is increasing, the
operation duration of the battery with higher discharge rate
also increases.

Power (kW)

4
TABLE II
S IMULATION RESULTS OF CHANGE IN LOAD DEMAND

3
2
1
0

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

1 Time (s)

Fig. 6. Different possible battery power profiles for increase in load demand.

To study the behavior of the proposed control scheme in

discharging mode, the load demand is increased by 1 kW, 3
kW and 5 kW. Similarly, to study the behavior in charging
mode, the load demand is decreased by -1 kW, -3 kW and -5
kW. The simulation results for both charging and discharging
scenarios are shown in Fig. 7. Since the charging and the
discharging rates of the battery are assumed to be equal,
the charging power profile and discharging power profiles
of the battery are symmetrical. The simulation results are
summarized in Table II. Here power is expressed in kW,
charge/discharge rates are expressed in kW/s and energy is
expressed in kW-s. From the results it is observed that the
rate limit (mlin ) of profile PB1 is increasing continuously
with increasing load demand, while the rate limit of profile

P
5
3
1
-1
-3
-5

t1
0.44
0.67
0.89
0.89
0.67
0.44

P1
1.11
1.00
0.44
-0.44
-1.00
-1.11

mlin
5.00
3.00
1.00
-1.00
-3.00
-5.00

m1
2.50
1.50
0.50
-0.50
-1.50
-2.50

m2
7.00
6.00
5.00
-5.00
-6.00
-7.00

EB1
2.50
1.50
0.50
-0.50
-1.50
-2.50

EB2
1.39
0.50
0.06
-0.06
-0.50
-1.39

EB
1.94
1.00
0.28
-0.28
-1.00
-1.94

B. Study of Change in Settling Time

In this study, battery response is studied by varying the
settling time (T ) in steps of 2 seconds, while keeping the load
demand constant at 5 kW.
Fig. 8 shows the simulations results for three different
settling times. In these three cases the maximum discharge
rate of profile PB2 is same but the linear discharge rate of
profile PB1 is varying. These values are quantified in the Table
III. Here, power is expressed in kW, charge/discharge rates
are expressed in kW/s and energy is expressed in kW-s. It
is observed that as T is increasing, the mlin is decreasing
continuously, but at the same time the corresponding energy

PB1

PB3 (Proposed)

PB2

R EFERENCES

Power (kW)

5
4
3
2
1
0
0

3
Time (s)

Fig. 8. Response of battery for change in settling time.

discharge EB1 is increasing significantly. However, the energy

discharged by profile PB2 is constant. It is observed that with
increase in settling time, the time taken by the battery (T t1 )
to discharge the power with rate-limit m2 is decreasing,
whereas the time taken (t1 ) increases with rate-limit of m1 .
Therefore, if we increase the settling time, then the operation
of battery with higher discharge rate can be reduced for short
duration.
TABLE III
S IMULATION RESULTS OF CHANGE IN SETTLING TIME
T
1
3
5

t1
0.44
2.44
4.44

P1
1.11
2.04
2.22

mlin
5.00
1.67
1.00

m1
2.50
0.83
0.50

m2
7.00
5.33
5.00

EB1
2.50
7.50
12.50

EB2
1.39
1.39
1.39

EB
1.94
4.44
6.94

V. C ONCLUSION
A new energy management control scheme with an adaptive two stage variable rate limit control has been proposed
for battery energy storage system. The objective of this
control is to regulate the charge/discharge rates and energy
stored/discharged by battery during changes in load demand.
This scheme allows the battery to operate under slowly varying
conditions, minimizing the life time limiting effects due to
high charge/discharge rates. The proposed control scheme
retains the features of conventional control scheme, that battery has to support slow transient and supercapacitor has to
support fast transient. The proposed scheme has introduced
two stage variable rate limit control. With this scheme, the
charge/discharge rates are controlled such that battery does
not exceed the maximum allowed rate-limit, and hence stress
levels are under control. The energy or SOC of the battery
has been controlled, so that battery can stay within the limits
for more duration. MATLAB simulations substantiate the
feasibility of implementation of proposed control scheme.
VI. ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
This work was supported by the Energy Innovation Programme Office (EIPO) through the National Research Foundation and Singapore Economic Development Board.

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