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In this work, a new active balancing circuit is proposed. This circuit consists of a cell-access network and an energy-transfer network. The cell-access network requires 2n + 6 switches, where n is the number of cells, and creates an energy-transfer path between unbalanced cells and the energy-transfer network. The energy-transfer network has double energy carriers and simultaneously implements cell-to-pack and pack-to-cell balancing operations without overlapping. As a result, a high power rate and fast balancing operation can be achieved by using two energy carriers in a single balancing circuit. The prototype of a proposed balancing circuit was built for six cells and then tested under various conditions; all cells in the state of charge (SOC) region of 70% to 80% were equalized after 93 min, and one charging/discharging period in the SOC region of 10% to 90% was increased by 8.58% compared to the non-balancing operation. These results show that the proposed circuit is a good way to balance charges among batteries in a battery pack.

This paper proposes a bidirectional dc–dc converter for residential micro-grid applications. The proposed converter can operate over an input voltage range that overlaps the output voltage range. This converter uses two snubber capacitors to reduce the switch turn-off losses, a dc-blocking capacitor to reduce the input/output filter size, and a 1:1 transformer to reduce core loss. The windings of the transformer are connected in parallel and in reverse-coupled configuration to suppress magnetic flux swing in the core. Zero-voltage turn-on of the switch is achieved by operating the converter in discontinuous conduction mode. The experimental converter was designed to operate at a switching frequency of 40–210 kHz, an input voltage of 48 V, an output voltage of 36–60 V, and an output power of 50–500 W. The power conversion efficiency for boost conversion to 60 V was ≥98.3% in the entire power range. The efficiency for buck conversion to 36 V was ≥98.4% in the entire power range. The output voltage ripple at full load was <3.59 Vp.p for boost conversion (60 V) and 1.35 Vp.p for buck conversion (36 V) with the reduced input/output filter. The experimental results indicate that the proposed converter is well-suited to smart-grid energy storage systems that require high efficiency, small size, and overlapping input and output voltage ranges.