Optimization of Electrolyte Rebalancing in Vanadium Redox Flow Batteries

This paper presents a novel algorithm to optimize energy capacity restoration of vanadium redox flow batteries (VRFBs). VRFB technologies can have their lives prolonged through a partial restoration of the lost capacity by electrolyte rebalancing. Our algorithm finds the optimal “number” and “time” of these rebalancing services to minimize the life-time service cost, while maximizing revenues from energy arbitrage. We show that the linearized form of this problem can be analytically solved, and that the objective function is convex. To solve the complete problem, we develop a two-step mixed integer linear programming (MILP) algorithm, which first finds the bounds for optimal number of services and then optimizes the number, and time of the services. We then present a theoretical analysis and optimization results for a case study of energy arbitrage in New York ISO.