Modeling of Single Flow Zinc-Nickel Battery for System Efficiency Improvement

In operating of a flow battery, a certain flow rate should be maintained in order to guarantee its performance. But the pump consumed power may cause significant losses for the overall battery system. In this paper, a fresh electrical model is proposed for the novel single flow zinc-nickel battery. The model consists of both battery stack part and pump power part, which consequently not only predicts accurately the battery electrical output, but also estimates the pump consumed power at different electrolyte flow rate. Based on the validated model, the influence of pump power on flow battery’s system efficiency can be evaluated at different operating modes. At last, possible means to further improve the system efficiency of battery is discussed.