VP has invested in its own cell testing lab, which allows electrical characterisation of battery cells as well as the capability to control thermal conditions of test cycles. This facilitates accelerated aging tests, temperature controlled battery cycles as well as root cause analysis on failed cells to be performed. It can also be used to electrically characterise cells for their properties such as state of charge (SOC) vs open circuit voltage (OCV), DC internal resistance and many others. This can be done for a number of cell formats including cylindrical, pouch and prismatic using an Arbin BT2000 battery cycler and ESPEC thermal chamber.
This is important because the properties of batteries, like many chemical processes, change with temperature and so these must be controlled precisely using state of the art equipment. The outputs of battery testing like this feeds directly into battery and energy management strategies and thermal simulation work. Vantage Power have utilised this technology to build comprehensive models of its own battery pack for sophisticated SOC algorithms, complex thermal simulations and for the formation of battery life models which prolong the life of its battery pack.