The Battery Management System (BMS) is a crucial element of battery management in energy storage systems found on electric vehicles, as it plays an important role in the operation and efficiency of the battery pack.
The battery pack of electric cars is composed of a set of smaller batteries, the cells, which are usually around a hundred. Due to a modular organization that allows them to be organized into blocks, individual cell management, and consequently, battery pack maintenance, is significantly easier to manage and accessible.
Over time, each cell tends to reduce its capacity differently from the others, so in order to ensure the battery’s efficiency over time and meet the stringent safety standards required, the Battery Management System (BMS) comes into play.
Balance, monitoring and safety: what the BMS is for in electric cars
The BMS is an electronic system that intervenes to make the battery in electric cars work at its best, taking into account safety requirements and factors such as overload and changes in battery temperature, slowing down the reduction in component efficiency and detecting any negative signals about the car’s operation.
Taking full advantage of on-board computer monitoring systems, the BMS informs and intervenes on factors such as power delivery by calculating the battery’s State of Charge and State of Health with predictive analytics systems. Through intelligent monitoring, the BMS can gather crucial information on battery wear or aging, allowing the vehicle’s efficiency to be optimized and, most importantly, prevent risks related to cell deterioration.
By integrating with the battery pack, State of Charge balances the cells, with benefits related not only to safety and energy efficiency, but also to charging. In fact, the Battery Management System’s intelligent systems are able to optimize discharge and recharge cycles, preventing the battery from recharging at an irregular rate, ensuring the longest possible battery life.