Modelling the Electric Air Conditioning System in a Commercially Available Vehicle for Energy Management Optimisation

Among the auxiliary systems on electric and hybrid electric vehicles the electric air conditioning (eAC) system causes the largest load on the high voltage battery and can significantly impact the energy efficiency and performance of the vehicle. New methods are being investigated for effective management of air conditioning loads through their integration into vehicle level energy management strategies. For this purpose, a fully integrated vehicle model is developed for a commercially available hybrid vehicle and used to develop energy management algorithms. In this paper, details of the eAC model of this vehicle are discussed, including steady state component validation against rig data. Also results of simulating the cabin pull-down are included.