Reconfigurable battery packs have been quietly developing for a while, with consumers hardly noticing subtle changes. Market Research.Com estimates the market is worth a tad over three billion dollars. The general idea is that batteries have been a one-size-fits-all affair until now, whereas in reality demand varies. Penn State University is working on a plan to address this shortcoming.
But First, Reconfigurable Batteries in More Detail
Let’s imagine, for a moment, a battery that reconfigures its output based on demand, in the light of its aging condition. Here are two possible scenarios in future view:
- A storage battery is quietly ticking over in load balancing mode, supporting the grid it serves. A peaking gas station trips. The battery delivers more energy instantly.
- An electric vehicle driver is cruising along an interstate highway with their battery in relaxed mode. They enter city stop-start traffic. The battery senses this, and increases output.
Reconfigurable battery packs for electric vehicles with AI talent like that, should have longer driving ranges and serve for more years. This situation may not be that far ahead into the future as we may imagine. Lets find out what the battery scientists at Penn State University are up to.
The Reconfigurable Project at Penn State University
The Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E), describes itself as ‘the disruptive arm of the U.S. Department of Energy’. The Agency confirms that Penn State University scientists are developing, an ‘innovative, reconfigurable design for electric vehicle battery packs’.
The reconfigurable battery packs on the Penn drawing board, will re-route power between cells in real time. We expand on the logic behind this as follows:
- New electric car battery packs have surplus capacity, to allow for their individual cells aging and degrading.
- A new battery may have four times the capacity it needs initially. This ‘over design’ is inefficient and expensive.
The proposal that the Penn State University battery scientists are busy with, would allow AI to ‘switch out’ individual cells as they age and weaken. It would also be able to monitor and manage power across cells, identify damaged cells, and signal the need to switch them out of the circuit.
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