What happens if a battery pack is out of balance?

A battery pack is out of balance when any property or state of those cells differs. Imbalanced cells lock away otherwise usable energy and increase battery degradation. Batteries that are out of balance cannot be fully charged or fully discharged, and the imbalance causes cells to wear and degrade at accelerated rates.

What is battery cell balancing?

Battery cell balancing brings an out-of-balance battery pack back into balance and actively works to keep it balanced. Cell balancing allows for all the energy in a battery pack to be used and reduces the wear and degradation on the battery pack, maximizing battery lifespan. How long does it take to balance cells?

What does unbalanced battery pack mean?

This unbalanced pack means that every cycle delivers 10% less than the nameplate capacity, locking away the capacity you paid for and increasing degradation on every cell. The solution is battery balancing, or moving energy between cells to level them at the same SoC.

What is a multi-cell battery pack?

In a multi-cell battery pack, which is commonly used in laptop computers and medical equipment, placing cells in series opens up the possibility of cell imbalance, a slower but persistent degradation of the battery. What is Cell Balancing?

How does battery balancing work?

The solution is battery balancing, or moving energy between cells to level them at the same SoC. In the above example, balancing would raise the cell at 90% SoC to match the other cells at 100% SoC. Thus, the previously locked-away energy is recovered, returning the pack to its nameplate capacity.

How much energy does a battery pack store?

The battery pack is composed of 100 series cells, with each series cell storing 10 kWh of energy. All cells are fully charged at 100% SoC except for one cell that is out of balance and is only at 90% SoC. As a result of this one cell, the entire pack is storing 999 kWh of energy, or 1000 kWh less the 1kWh from the cell that is not fully charged.