Battery peak power shaving strategy to prolong battery life for electric buses

This paper presents a battery peak power shaving strategy for battery electric buses. The developed strategy restricts the battery charge/discharge power when the propulsion power demand is high to avoid high deterioration of the battery capacity during operation. Without reducing the propulsion power, the developed strategy optimizes the power demand of the passenger cabin air conditioning system while guaranteeing the passenger temperature comfort. An equivalent consumption minimization strategy (ECMS) technique is extended to include the thermal comfort of the passenger in the energy management system of the bus. The developed strategy is analytical, real-time implementable and verified via hardware-in-the-loop test. Simulation results demonstrate the capability for satisfying the propulsion power demand and passenger temperature comfort while reducing the battery peak power (up to 20% during acceleration) to restrict the battery degradation significantly.