Model for Rating a Vanadium Redox Flow Battery Stack through Constant Power Charge–Discharge Characterization

Abstract

A method for estimating the stack rating of vanadium redox flow batteries (VRFBs) through constant power characterization was developed. A stack of 22 cells, each with 1500 cm2 of nominal electrode area, was constructed and tested using constant current and constant power protocols. Typical ratios of charging to discharging power that prevail in various applications (e.g., peak shaving, wind power/solar photovoltaic power integration) were employed in the test protocols. The results showed that fractional energy storage capacity utilization and round-trip energy efficiency varied linearly with the power at which the energy was charged or discharged. A zero-dimensional electrochemical model was proposed based on the area-specific resistance to account for the energy stored/extracted during constant power discharge in the state of charge (SoC) window of 20% to 80%. It was shown that this could be used to rate a given stack in terms of charging and discharging power from the point of view of its application as a power unit. The proposed method enables stack rating based on a single polarization test and can be extended to flow battery systems in general.