If you’ve ever noticed your iPhone’s “Optimised Charging” message or temperature warning, you’ve seen a small example of a battery management system in action. This concept—preserving battery health by carefully managing charge levels and monitoring battery temperature—is also at the heart of Energy Renaissance’s Australian Battery Management System (BMS), the superBMS™.
A Battery Management System (BMS) is the control centre of a battery, ensuring its safety, efficiency, and longevity. It monitors key parameters such as voltage, temperature, and current to prevent overcharging, deep discharging, and overheating. By balancing individual cell voltages, the BMS optimises battery performance and protects against premature wear or failure.
A battery management system tracks the State of Charge (SoC) and State of Health (SoH), providing real-time data on capacity and condition. A BMS also enables seamless integration with energy storage systems and grids. This ensures reliable, secure energy delivery for residential, commercial, and industrial applications.
The battery pack BMS monitors the state of charge (SoC) and state of health (SoH) at a cell level and balances the battery cells within the pack. It protects against over-voltage, under-voltage, over-temperature, and over-current conditions at the pack level. The pack BMS communicates with the battery Rack BMS for broader system coordination.
The battery rack BMS monitors the state of charge (SoC) and state of health (SoH) at both a rack level and pack level. It balances the load across all packs and implements protection mechanisms at the rack level. The rack BMS communicates between the pack BMS units and the broader system including integration with external systems.
Batteries are far from simple. They’re composed of hundreds or even thousands of individual cells. Each requiring careful handling to perform as a single, powerful unit. Without efficient management, some cells naturally work harder than others. This cell disbalance causes other cells to underperform, reduces the efficiency of the entire battery system and can shorten the battery life.
In multi-cell battery systems, such as those in commercial, industrial, or large-scale energy storage (BESS), each cell may vary slightly in capacity or voltage. Over time, these small differences accumulate, causing uneven charge levels that impact performance. This is where your BMS steps in. Energy Renaissance’s superBMS™ provides cell balancing during charging and discharging for maximum efficiency.
Cell Balancing during charging
When certain cells reach their top-of-charge voltage threshold (typically 3.65V for LiFePO4), the BMS limits the charge current to those cells. Charging continues until all cells within the battery rack are balanced, achieving uniform voltage levels.
Cell Balancing during discharging
During discharging, cell balancing occurs through differential voltage management. The BMS continuously monitors cell voltages to ensure no cell drops below its minimum voltage threshold (typically 2.7V for LiFePO4). If any cell reaches this threshold, the battery rack halts discharge to prevent over-discharge and protect the cells, packs, and rack.
By providing cell balancing during both charging and discharging, our superBMS™ helps mitigate overcharging and deep discharging which enhances the system safety and extends the battery life.
Increased Battery Lifespan: Cell balancing reduces stress on individual cells by managing charge and discharge currents evenly, extending battery life and maintaining consistent performance.
Optimised Performance: Balanced cells deliver stable power with minimal fluctuations and reduced inefficiencies, increasing overall system reliability.
Improved Efficiency: Balanced cells reduce energy losses and heat generation, enhancing power delivery and prolonging battery lifespan.
The performance of the BMS in balancing directly influences the accuracy of State of Charge (SoC) and State of Health (SoH) calibration. Inaccurate SoC or SoH readings can lead to significant consequences. Discrepancies in these algorithms—whether due to measurement errors or deviations from the actual state of the cells—affect system performance.
SoC and SoH values are crucial for guiding third-party Energy Management Systems (EMS) or site controllers in managing overall operations, including scheduling charge and discharge cycles and optimising performance. Unreliable readings can result in inefficient energy use, premature battery aging, and additional cell stress, potentially leading to costly maintenance, early replacements, or even thermal runaway. Inaccuracies can also cause unexpected downtime or failure to meet performance targets, impacting the reliability, safety, and ROI of the entire energy storage system.
By ensuring accurate SoC and SoH estimations, our superBMS™ mitigates these risks, providing more precise control and enhancing the long-term performance of your energy storage solution.
Energy Renaissance has invested years of research and development into perfecting our BMS, in partnership with CSIRO, Australia’s National Science Agency. Our award-winning, cybersecure superBMS ™ incorporates custom software, PCB design, switchgear, and balancing algorithms. Together with our superEMS™ and superModbus™, these innovations form the backbone of our superStorage™ products.
Our superBMS™ allows customers to maximise their battery’s potential daily, confident that their energy storage is optimised and safeguarded by advanced Australian-made technology.
Don’t miss out! For the latest news, insights and upcoming events, please sign up to our mailing list