Communication Interfaces for Mobile Battery Energy Storage Applications

Abstract: In the midst of the green energy transition, the need for flexible grid solutions is growing. One of the most desired and suitable flexible solutions are Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS), in both stationary and mobile applications. The faster response times and flexible service capability of the BESS enables the introduction of variable renewable energy sources, along with replacing the needs for traditionally fossil fuel-powered temporary applications. To take full advantage of BESS and its flexibility, the unit requires integration into the modern interconnected smart grid, where control and monitoring are of great importance to manage and optimize assets within the smart grid. To ease the control and monitoring aspects, both manufacturers and users must cooperate to understand the common needs and best practices to find a suitable middle ground. Therefore, an interoperable and readily used communication interface shall be agreed upon. Although several attempts at reaching such middle ground have been made over the years, few have gained traction outside of specific use cases. Thus leaving many redundant and complicated proprietary communication solutions, requiring heavy integration work for the manufacturer and user side. This thesis project, carried out at Northvolt Systems, aims to analyze the existing and readily used communication interfaces for a specific set of mobile BESS applications. The analysis is performed by a literature review of typical mobile BESS applications with the identified corresponding communication interfaces. Among the identified interfaces is the IEC 61850 standard, which shows suitability in smart grid applications, enabling interoperability, vendor-independence, and standardization. To provide a real-life analysis of the IEC 61850 benefits and applicability to mobile BESS, an integration of the standard to a Northvolt mobile BESS was performed. The results of the analysis and integration work show that the interoperability, vendor-independence, and standardization enabled from the IEC 61850 standard give large benefits for mobile BESS use cases. Furthermore, gaps in the suitability of the standard were identified. Providing clear suggestions on future work and expansion of the standard to better accommodate the mobile use cases.