Optimization of the Shunt Currents and Pressure Losses of a VRFB by Applying a Discrete PSO Algorithm
Decebal Aitor Ispas-Gil,
Ekaitz Zulueta,
Javier Olarte,
Asier Zulueta,
Unai Fernandez-Gamiz
Affiliations
Decebal Aitor Ispas-Gil
System Engineering and Automation Control Department, University of the Basque Country UPV/EHU, Nieves Cano, 12, 01006 Vitoria-Gasteiz, Spain
Ekaitz Zulueta
System Engineering and Automation Control Department, University of the Basque Country UPV/EHU, Nieves Cano, 12, 01006 Vitoria-Gasteiz, Spain
Javier Olarte
Centre for Cooperative Research on Alternative Energies (CIC EnergiGUNE), Basque Research and Technology Alliance (BRTA), Alava Technology Park, Albert Einstein 48, 01510 Vitoria-Gasteiz, Spain
Asier Zulueta
Nuclear Engineering and Fluid Mechanics Department, University of the Basque Country UPV/EHU, Nieves Cano, 12, 01006 Vitoria-Gasteiz, Spain
Unai Fernandez-Gamiz
Nuclear Engineering and Fluid Mechanics Department, University of the Basque Country UPV/EHU, Nieves Cano, 12, 01006 Vitoria-Gasteiz, Spain
This paper presents an extensive study on the electrochemical, shunt currents, and hydraulic modeling of a vanadium redox flow battery of m stacks and n cells per stack. The shunt currents model of the battery has been developed through the use of Kirchoff’s laws, taking into account the different design cases that can occur and enumerating the equations of nodes and meshes specifying them so that the software implementation can be performed in a direct way. The hydraulic model has been developed by numerical methods. These models are put to work simultaneously in order to simulate the behavior of a VRFB battery during charging and discharging, obtaining the pressure losses and shunt currents that occur in the battery. Using these models, and by using a PSO-type optimization algorithm, specifically designed for discrete variables, the battery design is optimized in order to minimize the round-trip efficiency losses due to pressure losses and shunt currents. In the optimization of the battery design, value is given to the number of stacks in which the total number of cells in the battery is distributed and the dimensions of the piping relative to both the stacks and the cells.
