Sileaf’s Advanced Storage system

Ever since its inception, Sileaf has been at the forefront of the Indian energy landscape developing innovative robust and reliable products. Sileaf’s R& D team has over 6 years of experience and efforts building robust solar products made in India for Indian environment and has developed a range of innovative products including solar DC water pump, off-grid inverter, string inverter, data logger and power management controller (DG controller orreverse power controller).

In January,Sileaf launched its indigenous advanced storage solution with Battery Management System(BMS). The system uses advanced Lithium-Ion (Li-Ion) batterieswhich ensure long life, minimum maintenance and space requirement and substantially lower losses than conventional batteries.

The BMSmanages the battery, protecting it from operating outside its safe operating area. It’s developed indigenously for monitoring cell voltage, pack voltage, and pack temperature of Li-Ion battery with automatic cell balancing for each cell in order to maintain certain voltage.The system has independent cell voltage, temperature protection and cell balancing. Intelligent, efficient multi-cell balancing maximises the usable range
of the battery and improves the life of battery pack.

The controller is designed using high-end Micro-controller which provides the complete range of programming and diagnostic features that increase the flexibility of the system. The BMS offers custom configuration for setting the limit and interlocks which protects the battery. Cells are protected from over-voltage, under-voltage, over-current, over-temperature, and under-temperature based on the programmed minimum and maximum values in the battery profile.It also integrates a voltage translation and precision analog-to-digital converter system to measure battery cell voltages with high accuracy and speed.All cells are connected in a daisy chain configuration which provides scalability and simplicity of the system.

It is also capable of monitoring battery status, calculating secondary data, reporting that data, controlling its environment, authenticating or balancing it. The controller collects and manages the monitored data and provides the health of individual cells and battery pack. It triggers error notifications if either the pack or individual cells are in poor health.Two external communication interfaces are used CAN Open for efficient fast communication between micro-controllers and devices and RS 232 interface to communicate with the external display. Users can remotely access the interface and see real-time monitoring data of battery or cell voltage, temperature, and cell balancing status etc.

The BMS is designed to operate in harsh environments. A prototype of this system is installed in 2016 at Ajman for a 220kW rooftop installation with 600 kWh battery storage and 16-hour backup. Along with this, a customised DG and solar synchronisation capable system was developed with the feature of charging the Li-Ion batteries through DG in case solar is not available. It is also flexible enough to allow interface with the grid in future as and when it becomes available.

The project was award best rooftop project of the year 2016 by Middle East Solar Industry Association (MESIA). It demonstrates how 24/7 renewable energy supply can be achieved through advanced storage solutions and is a big step towards achieving energy independence.

For more details, visit www.sileaf.com