The Brain in Energy Storage Devices - MCU

MCU， The micro control unit, as the brain of the system, is responsible for controlling the coordination of various components in the energy storage system. This includes controlling the battery charging and discharging process, monitoring the battery status (such as voltage, current, temperature, and state of charge (SOH), and executing various protection strategies to prevent overcharging, over discharging, short circuits, and other situations, thereby ensuring the safety of the battery pack and extending its service life.

Meanwhile, The MCU collects data from sensors and processes and analyzes it to make real-time control decisions. In addition, it may also communicate through wired or wireless interfaces (such as CAN bus, Bluetooth, etc.) Communicate with other devices or cloud platforms (such as Wi Fi), upload system status information, or receive remote control commands.
In some advanced applications, MCU can improve energy efficiency by optimizing charging and discharging strategies, such as adjusting the operating mode of energy storage systems based on electricity price fluctuations, grid demand response, or the availability of renewable energy.
Especially in high-end energy storage solutions, such as some MCUs in NXP, they integrate functional safety libraries and support industrial and household functional safety standards (such as IEC 61508 and IEC 60730), ensuring that the system's reliability and safety meet strict standard requirements.
For energy storage devices with display screens or indicator lights, The MCU is also responsible for managing user interaction interfaces, displaying system status, alarm information, or allowing users to set system parameters through input methods such as buttons.
Compared to MCUs used in other smart products such as consumer electronics and smart home devices, MCUs in energy storage have higher safety standards, stronger computing power, and multitasking capabilities. And the energy storage MCU is basically an industrial grade product, which requires a working temperature of -40 ° C to+85 ° C.
At the same time, the energy storage MCU also needs to have long-term stability and durability, as well as specific communication interfaces and protocols, because the energy storage system may need to communicate with the power grid, monitoring systems, or other energy management systems. Therefore, the MCU may need to integrate specific communication interfaces (such as RS-485) Ethernet, CAN bus, and industry standard communication protocols such as Modbus IEC 61850）。

The development trend of energy storage MCU

With the development of electronic technology, MCU will continue to improve in terms of computing power, integration, and energy efficiency. This means that future MCUs can more efficiently process a large amount of data in battery management systems (BMS), providing more accurate battery monitoring and protection.
At the same time, MCU is becoming increasingly integrated, integrating more functions such as high-precision analog front-end (AFE), advanced power management unit (PMU), multi-channel communication interfaces, and security modules to simplify system design, reduce costs, and improve overall efficiency. Considering that energy storage systems typically require long-term operation, low-power MCU design has become a development trend to extend battery life and reduce energy consumption.
Given that the safety of energy storage systems is crucial, MCU will integrate more hardware level security features, such as encryption accelerators, secure booting, memory protection units, etc., to meet increasingly stringent network security and personal privacy protection requirements. In order to achieve more intelligent energy management and predictive analysis, the energy storage MCU may integrate machine learning accelerators or neural network processors, allowing the system to process data on-site and make real-time decisions, such as predicting battery health status, optimizing charging and discharging strategies, etc.
With the development of the energy storage market, industry standards will become more unified, MCU will follow more universal communication protocols and standard interfaces, promoting interoperability and compatibility between devices from different manufacturers. Considering the long-term investment return of energy storage systems, MCU will emphasize long-term life cycle design, while paying attention to environmental protection in material selection and production processes, in line with the requirements of circular economy and sustainable development.
In addition, a trend is that more and more energy storage MCUs are starting to adopt RISC-V architecture, especially domestically produced RISC-V. RISC-V MCU is very suitable for industrial control and related fields due to its high performance, high reliability, and abundant peripheral resources.
For example, the Apt APT32F103 series supports multiple peripheral interfaces (such as DMA, hardware CRC, enhanced timer, 12 bit high-precision ADC, etc.), suitable for industrial control and other fields, and theoretically also suitable for control and management in energy storage systems. There are also products such as Qinheng Microelectronics CH32V208, Xianji Semiconductor HPM6700/6400 and 6300 series, Dongsoft Carrier ES32VF2264 series, etc.
These MCUs are theoretically very suitable for control systems of energy storage products due to their characteristics such as high performance, low power consumption, rich communication interfaces, and high reliability design. They can handle complex battery management, energy conversion and distribution, monitoring, and communication tasks.

Summary

MCU is not only a core processor in energy storage devices, but also a key component to ensure efficient, secure, and intelligent operation of the system. With the development of technology, The continuous improvement of MCU performance enables energy storage systems to achieve more complex functions and higher levels of automation.