Giovanni PETRONE | Energy Storage and Energy Sources

Mission

The Energy storage and energy sources Laboratory (ESES Lab) was established in 2023 to promote R&D activities in the electric energy sector, and, in particular, in the framework of energy sources and energy storage devices and sytsems.

Energy sources that are alternative to fossil fuels play a fundamental role in the green transition: for example, electricity can be produced in systems using photovoltaic panels, wind turbines, and fuel cell systems. The production of electricity with such systems is characterized by an intrinsic intermittency (light radiation or wind), requiring energy storage systems, which can be integrated with green sources both in the medium- and large-scale smart electric systems (smart grid), or, in a smaller scale, in systems for electric mobility.

ESES Lab operates in this broad sector with research, development and technology transfer activities. The mission of the lab includes:

• studying, modeling and characterizing green generation and energy storage systems;
• developing solutions for monitoring, integration and management;
• developing algorithms for diagnostics and prognostics integrated with management devices and battery management systems (BMS).

Activities

The laboratory covers a wide range of activities, from the modeling of storage systems or energy sources to the characterization of batteries and the development of methods and systems for device management, diagnostics and energy management of complex systems. The activities are presented hereinafter.

With reference to the modeling and characterization of lithium-ion batteries:

• electric and thermal modelling;
• laboratory characterization of small capacity batteries at controlled room temperature;
• development and validation of performance indicators;

With reference to the monitoring and diagnostics of lithium-ion batteries

• development of methods for the state estimation (charge, health ...);
• their implementation on embedded systems and in BMS;
• characterization using the impedance spectroscopy;
• development of systems for impedance spectroscopy integrated in BMS.

With reference to additional applications of impedance spectroscopy:

• impedance spectroscopy of industrial-scale flow batteries;
• impedance spectroscopy of photovoltaic panels;
• systems for impedance spectroscopy and integrated diagnostics of fuel cells and electrolysers.

Furthermore:

• modelling and integration of thermal storage systems in smart grids;
• innovative batteries;
• energy management system in smart grids.

Within the laboratory activities, the staff cooperates with Italian and foreign universities, research institutes and companies having international relevance, including:

• ST Microelectronics srl;
• FIB S.p.A. – FAAM industria batterie;
• Magaldi Power S.p.A.;
• Bitron Industrie S.p.A;
• Enel Green Power
• Italian National Research Council -Institute of Marine Engineering – Palermo
• Politecnico di Milano – SolarTechLab
• Università degli Studi di Padova
• Università di Pisa
• Université Cergy Paris, France
• Laboratoire SATIE, France
• Université Gustave Eiffel, France
• Christian Albrecht Universität zu Kiel, Germania
• Jožef Stefan Institute, Ljubljana, Slovenia

Teaching

Beyond the teaching and research staff, research fellows and scholarship holders, the lab hosts undergraduate, graduated and PhD students from UNISA and partner universities. Some activities involve the participation of students in R&D projects supported by scholarships, research grants and collaboration contracts funded by the University and by industrial partners.

The laboratory also hosts some classes from the course “Batteries and energy storage”, taught by DIEM on the Master's degree in Electrical engineering for digital energy.

Equipment

The laboratory is equipped with some instruments dedicated to the experimental activity on electrochemical storage systems:

• thermal chamber Binder KB 240 with EUCAR 5 kit
• potentiostat/galvanostat/ZRA Gamry Reference 3000 AE with auxiliary electrometer and booster
• Keithley Sourcemeter unit 2420
• Oscilloscope Agilent MSO6034A
• Stabilized power supply TTi EX354RT triple power supply 300W