Influence of the energy management on the sizing of Electrical Energy Storage Systems in an aircraft

In an aircraft, Electrical Energy Storage Systems (EESS) are used as support to other sources in few mission phases in order to ensure the energy availability. They are also used as electrical smoothing devices in order to guarantee the required levels of reliability, stability and quality for an embedded electrical network. This paper deals with the association of two EESS: supercapacitors and secondary battery, which exhibit complementary properties. In this paper, a sizing method for both EESS is developed by taking into account their hybridization and their characteristics (such as capacity or depth-of-discharge) so as to minimize the global storage system weight. Moreover, an energy management based on a frequency approach is implemented to dispatch the power between all the sources. The influence of this management on the sizing is studied. Indeed the cut-off frequency of the low-pass filter is used as a setting parameter of the sizing algorithm. Finally, the sizing validity is assessed and discussed according to temperature constraints. Although battery performances are reduced at low temperature, the sizing determined with the algorithm at 20 degrees C is still valid on all the temperature range thanks to an adaptation of the energy management parameter. (C) 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.