A Novel Highly Integrated Hybrid Energy Storage System for Electric Propulsion and Smart Grid Applications

This chapter addresses potentialities and advantages of a highly integrated hybrid energy storage system (HESS) for electric propulsion and smart grids. This configuration consists of a highly integrated battery-ultracapacitor system (HIBUC) and aims to benefit from the advantages of both passive and active HESS configurations. Particularly, the integration of the ultracapacitor module (UM) within the DC-link of the DC/AC multilevel converter enables the decoupling between DC-link voltage and energy content without the need for any additional DC/DC converter. As a result, HIBUC benefits from simplicity and energy flow management capabilities very similar to those achieved by passive and active HESS configurations, respectively. This is highlighted properly by a theoretical analysis, which also accounts for a comparison between HIBUC and both passive and active HESS configurations. Some HIBUC application examples are also reported, which highlight the flexibility and potentialities of HIBUC for both electric propulsion systems and smart grids.