Paper accepted for presentation at 2003 IEEE Bologna PowerTech Conference, June 23-26, Bologna, Italy

Effectiveness of Battery-Supercapaicitor
Combination in Electric Vehicles
S. Pay, Member, IEEE, and Y. Baghzouz, Senior Member, IEEE

high peaks and steep valleys due to repetitive acceleration and

Abstract-This paper investigates the application of a deceleration. The resulting current surges in and out of the
supercapacitor bank when used as a power buffer to smooth battery tend to generate extensive heat inside the battery,
rapid power fluctuationsin and out of the battery of an electric or which leads to increased battery internal resistance - thus
hybrid vehicle. The study considers the simple case where the lower efficiency and ultimately premature failure [2], [3]. The
supercapacitor bank is connected directly in shunt with the problem of battery overheating and loss of capacity is more
battery as well as the case where it is connected through a DC/DC
acute when batteries are near full state-of-c'harge (SOC) since
converter that is necessary to achieve optimal performance. The
work is illustrated through computer simulations during vehicle they cannot accept large busts of current from regenerative
acceleration and deceleration. Partial experimental data on a breaking without degradation at this stage.
prototype circuit is also shown. Proper design of such a hybrid Supercapacitors (also referred to as ultracapacitors or
electrical energy storage system is expected to result in electrochemical capacitors) have much greater advantage over
substantial benefits to the well being of the battery bank. batteries when capturing and supplying sholrt bursts of power
due to their higher power density limits, and ability to charge
Index Tems-electric. and hybrid vehicles, supercapacitors, and discharge very quickly. Hence adding a supercapacitor
deep-cycle batteries, regenerative breaking, power transients,
DC/DC converters.
bank will assist the battery during vehicle acceleration and hill
climbing, and with its quick recbxge capability, it will assist
the battery in capturing the regenerative braking energy. This
I. INTRODUCTION significant advantage a batlery-supercapacitor energy
storage/supply system gained attention in recent years in
A significant portion of energy is dissipated in the brakes
when driving conventional gasoline-powered vehicles in
urban areas, where periodic acceleration-deceleration cycles
transportation systems [4]-[8] as well as other applications [9],
[lo]. Applying supercapacitors also allows for a smaller
battery size, and there is almost no limit to number of their
are required. Therefore, recovering this energy through
charge-discharge cycles (since there are no (chemicalreactions
regenerative breaking is an effective approach for improving
involved in their energy storage mechanism). Furthermore
vehicle driving range and this can only be accomplished by
these devices require no maintenance and do not use toxic
electric vehicles (EV) or hybrid-electric vehicles (HEV).
materials.
Regenerative breaking in these vehicles captures some of the
Special considerations must be taken into account when
kinetic energy stored in the vehicle's moving mass by
integrating such a hybrid energy storage system to achieve
operating the vehicle's traction motor as a generator that
optimal performance. While direct connection of the
provides braking torque to the wheels and recharge the
supercapacitor across the battery termirials does reduce
batteries [11.
transient currents in an out of the battery, the best way to
The battery bank of an EV is sized for peak power demand,
utilize the supercapacitor bank is to be able control its energy
and this often compromises the desired weight and space
specifications. On the other hand, The auxiliary power unit content through a power converter. The paper reviews the
(APU) of an HEV is designed to provide the normal average direct supercapacitor-battery shunt conneclion, after a short
power required by the vehicle, while the battery is sized to section addressing component ml3deling issues. The desired
provide power surges needed during acceleration and hill connection is then addressed by using a DCDC converter in
climbing and to accept momentary powers during breaking. the boost mode when discharging, and in the buck mode when
While EVs and HEVs are more efficient than conventional charging the supercapacitor bank. The analy,sis is illustrated by
vehicles in urban areas, the electric load profile consists of computer simulations of an actual system. Part of the
simulations is verified by experimental data on a prototype
This work was supported in part by the U.S. Department of Energy, model.
Nevada Operations Office, through the Nevada Environmental Research Park
(NERP) Program.
S. Pay is with Harris Engineering Consultants, Las Vegas, NV 89119,
USA, (e-mail: [email protected]).
11. COMPONENT MODELING
Y. Baghzouz is with the Department of Electrical and Computer This section reviews the mo'deling of the main power
Engineering, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, NV 89154 USA (e-mail:
eebag @ ee.unlv.edu).
system components in an electric vehicle; namely, the battery

0-7803-7967-5/03/$17.00 02003 IEEE

bank, the supercapacitor bank, and the electrical load. More error, and the supercapacitor bank can simply be represented
details on electrical component modeling can be found in by a series R-C circuit.
power electronics textbooks such as Ref. [ 111.
C. Electrical Load
A. Battery Bank The electrical load in electric vehicles consists mainly of an
Batteries are quite difficult to model as they undergo inverter-fed induction motor for motive power. During
thermally-dependent electrochemical processes while regenerative breaking, the motor is turned into a generator by
delivering and accepting energy. Thus the electrical behavior reducing the frequency of its terminal voltage, thus reversing
of a battery is a nonlinear function of a number of constantly power flow and producing braking torque. Detailed modeling
changing parameters, such as internal temperature, state-of- of inverter-fed motor drives is found in standard power
charge, rate of charge/discharge, etc ... The capacity of a electronics and drives textbooks.
battery depends on the discharge rate as wells as temperature. As far as the power source in concerned, power demand is
This relationship is described by Peuket's equation relating the sufficient for analysis. Since the DC bus voltage is not allowed
discharge current I (A) to the time t (hr) it takes it to discharge, to vary significantly from its nominal value, current demand
I = av(flt), where a and /?are constants. Given the battery gives a good approximation of power demand. Thus the load
capacity ,C , at temperature To, the capacity at some other
can be modeled simply by a time-varying current source that
temperature is computed by C, = CT,/l + o(T-T,)/ where Q is reverses direction as the vehicle switches from coasting or
a constant.
acceleration to regenerative braking.
An approximate model that is often used for batteries is a
Thevenin equivalent circuit that consists of the open circuit
voltage in series with an effective internal resistance. Both
voltage and resistance values are functions of the battery SOC, 111. DIRECT SUPERCAPACITOR CONNECTION
and these relations are generally supplied the manufacturer. Supercapacitor integration with the battery-load circuit can
SOC is defined the percentage of energy left in a battery (after be challenging when trying to optimize the presence of this
supplying a certain amount of amp-hours) relative to its full additional sub-system. The simplest way is to connect the
capacity. supercapacitor directly in parallel with the battery bank, after
The open-circuit voltage is often approximated by a linear first pre-charging it to the battery terminal voltage. Such a
function of the SOC: Voc = al+ a2 SOC, at some specific connection is shown in Fig. 1 where the load current denoted
temperature (e.g., 80" 0. The battery internal resistance has by iL is defined to flow downward (i.e., positive during
static and dynamic values that depend of battery SOC, whether acceleration and coasting, and negative during regenerative
the battery is being charged or discharged and rate of breaking).
charge/discharge. In short duration studies, however, the
amount of amp-hours in and out of the battery is a small iL
fraction of the battery capacity. Hence it is fair to assume that +
battery internal voltage is constant during such periods, and a I i
quasi-steady state model with fixed open-circuit voltage and
internal resistance constitutes an acceptable battery model
[12],[13]. Note that two resistance values are used in this case,
one during charging and another during discharging.

B. Supercapacitor Bank
As in conventional capacitors, the resistance and
inductance of the terminal wires and electrodes of
Fig. 1. Parallel connection of supercapacitorbank, battery bank, and
supercapacitors are represented by a series R-L circuit. electrical load.
Further, non-perfect insulation between the device electrodes
results in leakage current that is represented by a large shunt Given a certain load current profile representing some
resistance. The difference between conventional and short drive cycle, the battery current ib and supercapacitor
supercapacitors is that the latter are much more efficient, i.e., current i, are found by basic circuit rules such Kirchoffs
the series resistance is a lot lower and the shunt resistance is voltage and current laws:
much higher in value. The self-discharge time constant of . .
lb = lL
1, i-
.
supercapacitors several orders of magnitude larger than that of (1)
conventional capacitors. More sophisticated models suitable v = v, -icRc = vb -ibRb (2)
for dynamic studies are found in Ref. [ 141.
The study under investigation is a short-duration analysis of (3)
the power (or current) distribution between the battery bank
and supercapacitor bank during acceleration and deceleration. where v, and v b represent the internal capacitor and battery
Hence, the leakage resistance can be ignored without much voltages, respectively. Subsititution of (1) and (3) in (2) yields
the first order equation of vc:
 dv, + m, = m, + pi, The basic controls for the static power converter in Fig. 2
- (4) can be summarized as follows. prior to vehicle use, the
dt supercapacitor must charged by the battery bank or by an off
where board power supply. During the initial stages of vehicle
1 Rb acceleration, power flow out of Ihe supercapacitor should be
a= ' p=- matched to that of the load demand as long as the device
c(Rb+Rc) (Rb + Rc ) current rating is not exceeded. This requires the controller to
The solution to (5) can be written as shown in Eqn. (6) below:
adjust the ON state pulse with of SI accordingly. As the
capacitor continues to discharge, the battery current should
v, = Ke-M+ vb + pe-m fi,e"dt gradually increase and ultimately reach the load current when
the energy stored in the capacitor reaches low levels. During
where K is determined by setting the initial value of v, to vb. regenerative breaking, the supercapcitor shlould be charged at
Note that it is not possible to control power flow in and out the maximum possible rate (by modulating iswitch S2) so that a
of the supercapacitor bank in the circuit above since its small fraction of the load current flows into the battery bank.
terminal voltage is forced to be equal to the that at the battery The current injected by the load is then diverted slowly into
terminals at all time. Current division between the battery and the battery as the capacitor approaches full charge.
supercapacitor bank is determined solely by the two branch
internal resistances and internal voltages.

IV. SUPERCAPACITOR CONNECTION THROUGH

POWER CONTROLLER
The above straight connection clearly indicates that
optimal use of the supercapacitor bank requires a power flow
controller between the two energy storage subsystems. The
objective is to maintain the battery current as constant as
possible with slow transition from low to high current during
transients to limit battery stress. On the other hand, the
BucWBoost Converter
supercapacitor ought to charge as fast as possible without
exceeding maximum current from regenerative breaking, and
Fig. 2. Supercapacitor integration through power flow controller.
to discharge most of its stored energy during acceleration.
Energy flow in and out of the supercapacitor can be
controlled with a pulse-with-modulated (PWM) DC/DC IV.NUMERICAL ILLUSTRATION
converter with a simple topology as shown Fig. 2 [7], [8].The
supercapacitor is discharged during acceleration at a rate To illustrate the analysis in the sections above, the
performance of supercapacitor bank that was recently designed
controlled by modulating switch S I , In this boost mode, energy
is delivered to inductor Lfwhen S1 is turned ON (State 1), thenand installed as part of the energy storage :system of a series
transferred to the load through diode D2 when SI is OFF (State hybrid-electric bus is investigated by comiputer simulations.
The APU of this hybrid vehicle is ;I hydrogen-powered internal
2). During deceleration, the supercapacitor is charged at a rate
controlled by modeling switch S,. In here, energy is transferred
combustion engine [ 151. But for simplicity, the analysis
to 4 when S, is turned ON (State 3), then to the supercapacitorsimulates the vehicle power circuit with the APU shut off, thus
through diode D,when S, is turned OFF (State 4). representing the vehicle engine status when the battery bank is
The analytical expression of the supercapacitor current canat or near full charge. The battixy system consists of two
be determined by the second order differential equation banks connected in parallel, and one of the lbanks is shown in
d2ic R dic 1 Fig. 3 along with the supercapacitor bank. A. short description
-+A-+-
dt2 Lf dt CLf
f
i, = 0) (7) of the battery and supercapacitor subsystems follows.
Each of the two battery banks consists of 28 deep-cycle
whereflt) = 0 in States 1 and 4, and valve-regulated-lead-acid (VRLA) battery units connected in
R, di series. Each unit is rated at 12 V, and a capacity of CTo= 85
f(t ) = -2
r ,I+ Ah @ C/3 (at To = 80" F). Other battery parameters are listed
"f below.
in States 2 and 3. The power controller governs the flow of
0 static internal resistance dluring charging: 4 ml2 for
energy in and out of the supercapacitor only during
fluctuations in power demand. Consequently, quasi-steady- SOC 5 80%,and 10 mi2 at SOC = 90%
state relations between the converter input and output
0 recharge current limit: 400 A,
parameters do not exist in this case, and one has to resort to Peukert's equation constants: a= 1.33 and p= 256,
circuit simulation software such as PSpice. - - ~- dependence parameter: O= 0.004,
capacity-temp.
 0 V,, vs. SOC parameters: al= 11.80, u2 = 1.32, acceleration and deceleration. The following test procedure
0 battery subsystem rating: 336 VDC, 170 Ah@C/3. was conducted:
The supercapacitor consists of a string of 150 cells. Each cell 0 Pre-charging the supercapacitor string and connecting
is rated at 2.5 V and 2,500 F. Additional data follows: it in parallel with the battery unit.
0 cell series resistance = 1 m a , 0 Inject a constant current of 200 A until the voltage
cell leakage resistance: 30052, reaches the maximum allowed value of 14.2 V, then
0 cell peak voltage: 2.7 V, reduce the current to maintain this voltage for 10
0 cell rated current: 400 A, seconds.
0 supecapacitor subsystem rating - rated voltage: 375 V, 0 Shut of the load for 30 seconds.
peak voltage: 405 V, capacitance: 16.67 Farads, energy 0 Connect a 200 A load for 10 seconds, then stop.
storage capability: 1.2 MJ. The measured load current, battery current, capacitor
Since no capacitor cells are alike, they need to be current and system voltage are shown in Fig. 4(a). Note that
balanced as the voltage distribution becomes a function of the presence of the supercapacitor led to significant reduction
internal parallel resistance and cell capacitance. To of battery current, especially during the initial seconds of
distribute the total stack voltage evenly across the capacitor imposing load current. Fig. 4(b) shows the corresponding
bank, bypass resistors sized to dominate the leakage current current and voltage profiles calculated by Eqn. (1)-(7) where
are placed in parallel with each cell. The battery pack, the load current is approximated by iL = 320(e-'.25' - 7
however, is not equipped with a charge equalizer. The A for 0 < t 5 I O sec., and iL = -205 A for 40 c t 5.50 sec.
battery condition are monitored with a data acquisition The graphs of both figures are nearly perfect duplicates.
system that logs terminal voltage and internal temperature
of each cell and alerts the operator in case of excessive 300 1 r 15
heating or out-of-range voltages.

100

s E
E o
U

-100

-200

-300
0 10 20 30 40 50
Time (sec.)
(a)
300 T

200
12

-
9
100

E
2 0
5
U
-100

---Scaled Capacitor Current 3

-200
-Scaled Battery Current
-Scaled System Voltage

(b)
Fig. 3. (a) Supercapacitor bank, (b) battery bank

To validate the performance of the supercapacitor-battery

system during charge and discharge, a prototype model
consisting of one 12 V battery cell in parallel with a string of 6
Testing with a power controller to govern the energy flow
supercapacitor cells of the same model and make described
from the supercapacitor was not conducted due to lack of
above, was tested using special equipment that can both
generate and absorb specific current profiles that simulate converter availability, and only computer simulations using
PSpice are performed at present. To show the performance of
the hybrid system with a D C D C controller, a vehicle
acceleration cycle is simulated by a load current having a
waveshape that increases from 0 to 300 A within 10 seconds,
then decreases exponentially for 1.5 seconds, then stays
constant at 66 A for 9.5 seconds. The converter parameters are
set as follows: &= 100 mH, R f = 10 &,fw = 1 kHz, C’= 100
mF, the switch duty ratio is set to increase in discrete steps
every 1.5 seconds as long as the load current is rising.
Figure 5 below shows the simulated supercacitor and
battery currents and terminal voltages. Note that the power
controller allowed the supercapacitor to discharge from 360 V
down to 135 V (i.e., its energy content dropped to nearly 14%
of the initial charge). This made the supercapacitor an
effective energy buffer as delivered the most significant
portion of the load current during the first 10 seconds of
acceleration, and the battery bank current made a relatively
smooth transition for vehicle stand-still to constant speed.
For comparison purposes, Fig. 6 shows the corresponding
currents and voltages when the battery and supercapacitor
banks are connected without a power controller. Some of the
additional remarks that can be made include the following
when comparing both figures:
a) The battery peak current is reduced by 40%.
b) The DC bus voltage regulation is improved by 30%.
c) The supercapacitor’s SOC is 3.5 times lower with
than without the power controller after acceleration. (b)
Fig. 6. Simulated battery and supercapacitor (a) currents and (b)
I voltages during acceleration (w/o power converter).

V. CONCLUSIONS
Adding a supercapacitor bank to a battery- or fuel cell-
driven vehicle makes sense and advantages by far outweigh the
disadvantages. A direct parallel connection will reduce battery
stress by assisting with transient currents during acceleration
and deceleration, but will not make full use of the
supercapacitor as a true power buffer. Optimal use of the
supercapacitor requires a power controller that requires only
two static power switches, two power diodes, an inductor and
filter capacitor, but the best control strategy is not fully
developed due challenging control issues.
Future work will report on the developrnent of the power
converter that is currently in Tihe desigin stages and on
experimental data from actual vehicle driving cycles.

VI. ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
The work reported in this paper was funded by a grant from
the US. Department of Energy, Nevada Operations Office,
through the Nevada Environmental Research Park (NEW)
program.

VII. REFERENCES
L 125 116 2%
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VIII. BIOGRAPHIES
Steven Pay received his B.S. and M.S. degrees in electrical engineering from
the University of Nevada, Las Vegas in 1994, and 2000, respectively.
He is currently an electrical engineer with Harris Consulting Engineers, Inc.
His interests include power systems analysis, distribution system design and
power quality. His is a registered Professional Engineer in the State of
Nevada.

Yahia Baghzouz received is B.S., M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in electrical

engineering from Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA, in 1981,
1982 and 1986, respectively.
He is currently professor of Electrical Engineering, and Associate Director of
the Center for Energy Research at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. His
interests are in power quality, power electronics and renewable energy. He is
a registered Professional Engineer in the State of Nevada.