Management and Control of the Integration of Supercapacitor in

Photovoltaic Energy Storage

Zineb CABRANE*, Mohammed OUASSAID, Mohamed MAAROUFI
Department of Electrical Engineering,
Mohammadia School of Engineers (EMI),
Mohammed V University, Rabat,
Morocco
E-mails : zinebcabrane@gmail.com, ouassaid@emi.ac.ma, maaroufi@emi.ac.ma

Abstract— Standalone operation of a photovoltaic energy
generating system under solar irradiance fluctuation and
variable temperature is a difficult task. Thereby, it's necessary to
implement an energy storage system. Among the energy storage
devices, the battery is a promising solution that has higher energy
storage density, but the inconvenience is the low power density
and limited charge/discharge cycles. The supercapacitor
guarantees a long cycle life and has a large range of operating
temperatures, but suffers from a low energy density and high
cost. Combining the two storage devices is possible to obtain good
compromise in terms of energy density and a long cycle life. This
paper, present a hybrid energy storage with a photovoltaic
energy source, that consists of a combination of battery and
supercapacitor, where both are connected to the DC bus. An
energy management strategy is proposed for the hybrid energy
storage with a view to improve the performance of the battery
storage. The simulation result has been conducted to verify the
effectiveness of the integration of supercapacitor in the
photovoltaic energy storage. However, the obtained results of the
comparison of photovoltaic energy storage without
supercapacitor and with supercapacitor prove that the electrical
stresses on the battery are reduced by introducing the
supercapacitors.
Keywords-component: Supercapacitor; Battery; Photovoltaic;
Energy Management
I. INTRODUCTION
The renewable energy like photovoltaic energy and wind
energy has been proposed as a replacing of fossil fuels in order
to solve the urgent environmental problems around the world
like the reducing of CO2 emissions [1]. However, the
photovoltaic energy source is being increasingly recognized as
a cost effective power source and a clean renewable energy
vector [2], it is widely applied to fulfill the increasing energy
demand.
devices also mitigate the voltage variation problem under high
photovolatic penetration [4, 5].
The typical energy storage applied in standalone photovoltaic
system is batteries [6]. However, batteries are a relatively
mature technology; they characterized by a high energy
density but low power density, giving low charge/discharge
rates [7]. The supercapacitors (SCs) or electrochemical double
layer capacitors have a higher power density than batteries,
and they are more efficient and offer higher lifetime in terms
of charge-discharge cycles, but suffers from a low energy
storage density [8]. Batteries and SCs have complementary
qualities [9]. The combination of batteries and supercapacitors
provides an excellent solution that can cover a wide range of
power and energy requirements [10]. Thereby, they have been
proposed as a way of extending the battery lifetime and
increasing the system power capability. The use of hybrid
energy storage system HESS has been increased exponentially
in many applications such as electric vehicles [11], hybrid
electric vehicles [12] and renewable energy systems [13-14].
This paper presents a hybrid design approach of photovoltaic
energy storage by using a supercapacitors-batteries
combination. An energy management strategy will be
proposed to distribute the reference current to the batteries and
supercapacitors and to maintain a fixed DC bus voltage.
The rest of this paper is organized as follows. After
introduction presented in Section I, the system description and
modeling are described in Section II. The control and
management of DC bus are addressed in Section III. The
simulation results and validation are available in Section IV.
Finally, Section V provides conclusion inferred from this
work.

The photovoltaic panels exhibit a strong fluctuation that
changes with such changing climate factors as solar irradiation
and temperature [3]. Moreover, the integration of an energy
storage system into a power system based on a photovoltaic
energy provides an opportunity for better responses of voltage
and current in order to guarantee its stability and power
quality in different function modes, especially during solar
irradiance fluctuations and load variations [1]. Energy storage
II. SYSTEM DESCRIPTION AND MODELING
The photovoltaic energy storage by using batteries-
supercapacitors combination is represented in figure 1, it
composed of: photovoltaic panels that deliver a variable
energy that is influenced by the weather fluctuation. This PV
panels are connected to the boost converter. A MPPT

978-1-5090-6287-4/17/$31.00 ©2017 IEEE

 MPPT
v pv Controller
i pv DPV I Load
I PVdc

cdc vdc LOAD

Photovoltaic panels

I batref
PI Corrector
ibat
Dbat SoCbat SoCSC
Ibatdc

I batdc
Batteries Energy management
I SC ref strategy
PI Corrector
iSC DSC I SCdc

I SCdc
Supercapacitors

Figure 1 : Photovoltaic energy storage System.

Loss Main cell Slow cell

C1 =C0 +Cv v1 (1)
isc R1 R2
The immediate behavior of the SC during fast charge and
i1 i2 discharge cycles in a few seconds is given by the main cell:
Rf C1=C0 V1 R1C1 branch.
Usc +CV .V1 C2 V2 The slow cell (R2C2 branch) completes the R1C1branch in
longtime duration in order (a few minutes) that represents the
internal energy distribution at the end of the charge or
Figure 2 : Electrical circuit of two branches model of Supercapacitor. discharge. The equivalent circuit of the supercapacitors is
represented by the following equation by considering Rf=0:
(Maximum power point tracking) control algorithm is used to
identify the maximum power operating point.  I 
U SC = N Ssc vsc = N Ssc  v1 + R1 SC  (2)
 N Psc 
A bidirectional buck-boost converter, it used to connect
batteries and supercapacitosr hybrid energy storage system where ISC is the supercapacitors pack current and voltage is the
HESS to the DC bus, where batteries are designed for storing supercapacitor pack, vSC and iSC are the elementary
photovoltaic energy in order to use it later if needed.
Supercapacitors are used to provide and absorb significant sopercapacitor voltage (in V) and current (in A), respectively.
powers with fast dynamics. NSsc and NPsc are the number of series and parallel SCs
connections. The voltage v2 is given by the following equation:
A. Modeling of two branches model of Supercapacitor
(3)
1 1 1
The electric circuit of supercapacitors with two RC branches is
represented in figure 2 [15]. The main capacitance C1 (in F), is
v 2 =
C 2 
i 2d t =
C 2  R2
( v 1 − v 2 ) d t.

the differential capacitance of SC. It consists of a constant

The current i1 is expressed in function of the instantaneous
capacity C0 (in F), a constant parameter Cv and depends on the
charge Q1 and C1 as
voltage v1 (in V) and it given by:
 nb .Ri Ibat accumulator heating.

SoC , I bat C bat 1.67

= 0.9
. (1 + 0.005.ΔT ) .
C 10 I  (7)
Vbat 1 + 0.67.  bat 
nb .Eb  I 10 
SoC , I bat
III. CONTROL AND MANAGEMENT OF DC BUS
The control of the DC bus voltage is given according to the
principle described in figure. 4. The reference current of the
DC bus Idcref is calculated by the PI corrector to maintain the
Figure 3 : Equivalent electrical circuit with nb battery elements in series.
DC bus voltage at the reference voltage Vref =400V. An
dv 1 dQ1 dv (4) Energy Management Strategy (EMS) delivers the reference
i 1 = C1 = = (C 0 + Cv .v 1 ) 1 current Iscref and Ibatref to the static converters associate to the
dt dt dt
batteries and supercapacitors. These currents (Ibatref and Iscref )
where the charge Q1 is given by ensure the regulation of the DC bus. If a problem produced on
an element (discharge of an element), the SCs and/or batteries
1 ensure the constancy of DC bus voltage. In any time, the sum
Q1 = C0 .v1 + Cv .v12 (5)
2 of the reference currents, Iscref and Ibatref, must be equal to Idcref.

I dcref = I sc ref + I bat ref . (8)

B. CIEMAT model of battery

The battery electrical model represented in figure 3, it The DC bus voltage can be modeled by the following equation
composed by a controlled voltage source Eb (in V) in series
with a constant resistance Ri. The battery voltage Vbat for nb dvdc (9)
Cdc = isc dc + ibatdc + i pvdc − iLoad
cells in series is given by dt
(6) where iSCdc , ibatdc and i pvdc , represent the DC current of SCs,
Vbat = nb .Eb + nb .Ri .Ibat
batteries and PV panels respectively, where ILoad is the load
where Ibat is the battery current. current. Cdc is the central bus capacity that will allow imposing
The capacity model produces the quantity of energy Cbat where a DC bus voltage to the load and all other sources.
the battery can restore; depending to the average discharge The PI corrector provides the storage current reference of the
current. The general expression is given in function with the I10 DC bus. This signal flows thereafter by a low-pass filter
current, relative to operating mode C10 [16], where ∆T is the towards batteries and supercapacitors.

SoC bat SoC SC

Control

ipv
Vdcref I dcref I bat iLoad
ref
PI ibat
D bat dc
PI Buck-Boost +
V dc Batteries

I SC Bus DC
ref

D SC i SC
dc
PI Buck-Boost +
0 Supercapacitors

Figure 4 : Block diagram of the DC bus control.

 IV. SIMULATION RESULTS AND VALIDATION
To investigate the performance of the proposed energy
management strategy of the integration of the supercapacitors
in the photovoltaic energy storage, two simulation tests are
executed with the same solar irradiance profile. The first one
is the simulation of photovoltaic energy storage without
supercapacitors and the second one is the simulation of
photovoltaic energy storage with supercapacitors. The load
current is represented constant at 120A. The reference DC bus
voltage is Vref=400V.
Simulation results of photovoltaic energy storage without
SCs.
The first simulation test represented in figure 5 was executed
without supercapacitors. The proposed profile of the solar
irradiance Ir is given by figure 5 (a), where the photovoltaic
current Ipv follows the same change of the solar irradiance and
the load current ILoad is considered constant, these currents are
represented in figure 5 (b). The batteries are used to stabilize
the DC bus voltage and to response to the load needed, the
batteries current Ibat is given by the figure 5 (c) and the state of
charge of batteries SoCbat is illustrated in figure 5 (d).
In this case, the batteries ensure the difference of the current
requested by the load.
Simulation results of photovoltaic energy storage with SCs.
The second simulation test illustrate in figure 6 was executed
with a combination of batteries and supercapacitors. In this
simulation test, we propose the same profile of the first
simulation test of the solar irradiance and it is given by figure
6 (a). The photovoltaic current Ipv and the load current ILoad
are given by figure 6 (b), where the photovoltaic current
follows the same change of the solar irradiance where the load
current is considered constant. Supercapacitors current ISC and
batteries current Ibat are represented in figure 6 (c).
supercapacitors provide the transient currents while Batteries
react more slowly to the needs as demanded by the load,
supercapacitors absorb and delivers fast change of current and

a b

c d

Figure 5 : Simulation results of photovoltaic energy storage system without supercapacitors

 a b

c d

Figure 6 : Simulation results of photovoltaic energy storage system with supercapacitors

eliminate peaks currents on batteries, where the batteries have

an exponential form and respond progressively.
The state of charge of batteries SoCbat is represented in figure
6 (d).

Comparison between the photovoltaic energy storage

system without supercapacitors and with supercapacitors
This comparison is implemented to justify the use of SCs.
Figure 7 (a) represents the comparison of the batteries current
of system with SCs and without SCs. We notice that the
a
batteries current of system without SCs are represented by
peaks current in every change of the load where the use of SCs
in the second simulation test eliminates the peaks current on
the batteries and they react more slowly to the needs where
they have an exponential form due to the use of the energy
distribution and the adopted energy management strategy.
The state of charge of batteries of system with SCs and
without SCs, SoCbat with SC and SoCbat without SC are given in figure
7 (b). We notice that the use of SCs reduces the energy
consumption on batteries.

Figure 7 : Comparison of simulation results of photovoltaic energy storage

system with supercapacitors and without supercapacitors
 V. CONCLUSION
The photovoltaic energy storage by using batteries and
supercapacitors combination has been proposed in this paper.
The proposed energy management strategy permits to deal
with the solar irradiation fluctuation and / or the load variation
in order to stabilize the DC bus voltage.
The effectiveness of the integration of SC in the
photovoltaic energy storage system has been proven by the
comparison of two simulation mode results of energy storage
system, the first one is the photovoltaic energy storage without
supercapacitors and the second one is the photovoltaic energy
storage with supercapacitors. However, it has been seen that
the integration of supercapacitor in the energy storage system
eliminates the peak current of batteries, reduces stresses on the
battery and increases the battery life by reducing the energy
consumption of batteries.
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