Economy-Focused PHEV Battery Lifetime Management through Optimal Fuel Cell Load Sharing

This paper demonstrates an optimal plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV) energy management strategy aimed at actively controlling the degradation of a given vehicle´´s main energy carriers: in the proposed scenario, these consist of a lithium-ion battery pack and a polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell (PEMFC). This is achieved by optimizing said vehicle´´s operating cost during an active driving cycle while including each energy carrier´´s usage-sensitive lifetime in addition to fuel and grid recharge expenses. The proposed scenario will lead to detailed solutions for the optimal process´´s response and performance, which will be exploited to evaluate its performance versus alternative strategies. Our results demonstrate the economic gains of our solution versus common rule-based charge depleting PHEV energy management strategies as well as insights into the mechanisms at play during the process.