Design and On-Field Validation of an Embedded System for Monitoring Second-Life Electric Vehicle Lithium-Ion Batteries

In the last few years, the growing demand for electric vehicles (EVs) in the transportation sector has contributed to the increased use of electric rechargeable batteries. At present, lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries are the most commonly used in electric vehicles. Although once their storage capacity has dropped to below 80–70% it is no longer possible to use these batteries in EVs, it is feasible to use them in second-life applications as stationary energy storage systems. The purpose of this study is to present an embedded system that allows a Nissan(®) LEAF Li-ion battery to communicate with an Ingecon(®) Sun Storage 1Play inverter, for control and monitoring purposes. The prototype was developed using an Arduino(®) microcontroller and a graphical user interface (GUI) on LabVIEW(®). The experimental tests have allowed us to determine the feasibility of using Li-ion battery packs (BPs) coming from the automotive sector with an inverter with no need for a prior disassembly and rebuilding process. Furthermore, this research presents a programming and hardware methodology for the development of the embedded systems focused on second-life electric vehicle Li-ion batteries. One second-life battery pack coming from a Nissan(®) Leaf and aged under real driving conditions was integrated into a residential microgrid serving as an energy storage system (ESS).