Via Zoom: Optimizing Capacity Restoration Service Time for Flow Batteries Participating in Energy Arbitrage Markets

Redox flow battery (RFB) is one of the emerging technologies in the energy storage systems area. Different chemistries of this technology shows promising performance and lifetime features that can potentially compete with Li-ion batteries in stationary storage applications. The RFB technology has a long cycle life, due to the fact that its lost capacity can be partially restored by simply mixing the electrolyte materials (capacity restoration service). Our objective is to find the optimal “number” and “time” of these services to minimize the service cost while maximizing the revenues from the energy arbitrage. A simplified form of this problem can be analytically solved by simple geometry rules to show that the function is convex. To solve the whole problem, we have developed a two-step MILP optimization algorithm, which first finds the “optimal number” of services and then assigns “optimal time” for each service. We are further working on the model to improve its computational efficiency and include a more detailed battery model.