Battery Emulation in Energy Storage

Energy storage systems are central to modern grids, microgrids, and renewable integration, powering everything from utility-scale installations to commercial facilities. At the heart of these systems are large battery packs that must perform reliably under diverse and demanding operating conditions. Validating their performance is essential to ensure efficiency, safety, and long-term reliability.

Traditional validation methods rely on physical batteries, which present significant challenges. Large packs are costly to acquire and maintain, and each charge/discharge cycle can take hours or days. Physical testing also introduces safety risks, including fire or chemical hazards, and makes it difficult to explore a wide range of conditions such as different state of charge (SoC), temperatures, or fault scenarios. Moving, storing, and handling large packs requires extensive infrastructure, further slowing down development.

Keysight’s high-power ATE system power supplies provide a dedicated platform for battery emulation that eliminates these barriers. Acting as programmable, regenerative, bidirectional power sources, they enable engineers to replace physical packs with precise, repeatable, and safe emulation of real battery behavior. Combined with automation software, the solution creates a complete test environment for chargers, inverters, and full energy storage systems.

Key capabilities of the Keysight solution include:

• Emulate full-scale scenarios: Real-time dynamic load modeling and SoC-adjusted simulation replicate true battery behavior under varied battery profiles.
• Bidirectional testing: A single regenerative supply sources and sinks current to emulate both charge and discharge conditions without hardware swaps.
• Automate long-term behavior: Apply live discharge curves into emulation tests to accelerate validation of system efficiency and response over thousands of cycles.
• Cut costs and reduce heat: Regenerative operation recycles power back to the grid, lowering facility energy use and cooling requirements for long-duration testing.
• Streamline workflows: Automation software eliminates manual coding, orchestrates complex test sequences, and ensures repeatable results across multiple battery types and conditions.

The result is a faster, safer, and more accurate validation workflow. Engineers gain the ability to explore a wide range of conditions without the risks and delays of handling physical batteries. Utilities and energy innovators can accelerate time-to-market, reduce operating costs, and ensure reliable deployment of energy storage systems with confidence.