Cylindrical Geometry Energy Storage Cooling Architectures

Electrical energy storage devices e.g., rechargeable batteries, ultracapacitors, flywheels all suffer some level of energy conversion loss as they are charged and discharged. Lithium-ion and other lithium-based rechargeable batteries lose electrical energy to IR voltage loss as current flows through the anode and cathode electrodes. Flywheel systems similarly dissipate heat through loss of electrical energy. In energy storage systems intended to operate at high power levels, with full charge and discharge cycles on the order of minutes in length, active cooling is required to remove the dissipated heat and limit the temperature of the battery or flywheel within limits consistent with maintaining performance and long cycle life. TIAX proposes a scalable cooling system architecture that has an effective thermal connection to each cylindrical energy storage device and can connect to a cooling source, for example, a fresh water cooling loop, that would be accessed at the back plane of the cabinet holding the battery racks. Preliminary thermal modeling shows that this cooling architecture will provide the necessary cooling performance using a fresh water cooling loop that is cooled via heat exchange with sea water, with a resulting fresh cooling water supply temperature as high as 40 degrees C.