Battery Cycling in Energy Storage

Energy storage batteries are expected to deliver reliable performance for years or even decades. Over time, however, their capacity, efficiency, and safety margins degrade. To ensure that storage systems can meet the needs of grid operators, utilities, and industrial users, engineers must validate battery performance over thousands of charge-discharge cycles.

Battery cycling, which is the repeated charging and discharging of a cell, module, or pack under controlled conditions, is the most direct way to measure this performance. It reveals how quickly capacity fades, how internal resistance increases, and whether dangerous behaviors such as thermal runaway may emerge over time. It also ensures that batteries meet certification and compliance requirements for large-scale deployment.

Traditional cycling setups, however, are inefficient. They rely on separate supplies and loads, consume large amounts of power, and dissipate energy as heat—requiring extensive cooling infrastructure. Manual reconfiguration and lengthy test times further delay validation and increase costs.

Keysight addresses these challenges with a dedicated battery cycling platform built on high-power regenerative ATE system power supplies and automation-ready software. With bidirectional capability, a single unit can source current to charge a battery and sink current to discharge it, eliminating the need for separate instruments. Regeneration returns discharged energy to the AC grid, reducing facility strain and enabling sustainable, long-duration testing.

Key capabilities of the Keysight solution include:

• Accurate, bidirectional cycling: Safely perform charge and discharge sequences with programmable profiles, replicating real-world usage conditions.
• Automated long-duration testing: Run weeks-long cycling campaigns with unattended operation, automated reporting, and synchronized data logging of voltage, current, and capacity.
• High-fidelity transient response: Capture performance during rapid changes in charge/discharge rates to reveal efficiency losses and stress behavior.
• Energy-efficient operation: Regeneration minimizes wasted energy and heat, cutting cooling requirements and operating costs.
• Scalable architecture: High-density form factors scale from cell- and module-level testing up to multi-kilowatt pack validation within the same platform.

The result is a faster, safer, and more sustainable validation process. Engineers can explore battery degradation mechanisms with sub-millisecond precision, replicate real-world duty cycles with confidence, and reduce operational overhead through regenerative operation. From single cells to full storage racks, Keysight’s solution scales to meet the needs of energy innovators and grid operators, providing the confidence to deploy long-life, reliable, and cost-effective storage systems.