Model-Based Design of a Pseudo-Cogenerative Heating System for e-Boat Battery Cold Start

Dario Fusai, Alessandro Soldati, Davide Lusignani, Paolo Santarelli and Paolo Patroncini
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Dario Fusai: Department of Engineering and Architecture, University of Parma, 43124 Parma, Italy
Alessandro Soldati: Department of Engineering and Architecture, University of Parma, 43124 Parma, Italy
Davide Lusignani: eDriveLAB s.r.l., 43124 Parma, Italy
Paolo Santarelli: 4e-consulting s.r.l., 44124 Ferrara, Italy
Paolo Patroncini: 4e-consulting s.r.l., 44124 Ferrara, Italy

Energies, 2021, vol. 14, issue 4, 1-26

Abstract: Full-electric boats are an expression of recent advancements in the area of vessel electrification. The installed batteries can suffer from poor cold-start performance, especially in the frigid season and at higher latitudes, leading to driving power limitations immediately after startup. At state, the leading solution is to adopt a dedicated heater placed on the common cooling/heating circuit; this implies poor volume, weight, and cost figures, given the very limited duty cycle of such a part. The Heater-in-Converter (HiC) technology allows removing this specialized component, exploiting the power electronics converters already available on board: HiC modulates their efficiency to produce valuable heat (pseudo-cogeneration). In this work, we use the model-based approach to design this system, which requires heating power minimization to fulfill power electronics limitations, while guaranteeing the user-expected startup time to full power. A multistage model is used to get the yearly vessel temperature distribution from latitude information and some additional data. Then, a lumped parameter for the cooling/heating circuit is used to determine the minimum required power as a function of the properties of the thermal interface material used for the battery coupling. The design is validated on a 1:5 test bench (battery power and energy), which demonstrates how the technology can be to scaled up to also fit different boats and battery sizes.

Keywords: batteries; thermal management; power conversion; environmental factors; energy management; modeling (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
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