A Study of Reduced Battery Degradation Through State-of-Charge Pre-Conditioning for Vehicle-to-Grid Operations

Transport electrification is a key enabler to reduce fossil fuel depletion and related carbon dioxide emissions. However, critical barriers exist in terms of battery costs and their expected life. Vehicle-to-grid technology can bring benefits to both the electrical power grid and electric vehicle owners, while its practical implementation faces challenges due to the concerns over accelerated battery degradation. This paper presents a comprehensive study on reduced Lithium-ion battery degradation through state-of-charge pre-conditioning strategies that allow an electric vehicle to participate in vehicle-to-grid operations during periods in which the vehicle is parked. Energy capacity reduction of the electric vehicle battery are predicted using semi-empirical ageing models, which have been built and validated to capture the degradation behaviours of the battery with respect to both calendar and cycling ageing. Five charging strategies for battery state-of-charge pre-conditioning have been developed to evaluate the ability to mitigate battery ageing before commencing vehicle-to-grid operations. Simulation studies on battery degradation utilizing such charging mechanisms under two different operational profiles have been undertaken. The analytical results show that the proposed charging strategies do not accelerate battery degradation and are capable of mitigating the total ageing process from 7.3 - 26.7% for the first 100 days of operational life and gradually vary to 8.6 - 12.3% for one-year continual operation compared to the reference standard charging approach.