In the Circuit Network method, every battery is treated as an electric circuit, and a battery pack is treated as a circuit network. The electric behavior of the battery, including the current and voltage distributions, is computed in a circuit network, and the heat generation rate within each battery can be obtained. Just as in the previous two approaches, the heat generation within a battery is assumed to be uniform. Therefore, the total heat for each battery is distributed uniformly within its active zone. Note that even though the heat generation is assumed to be constant within a battery cell, different battery cells may generate different heat. Moreover, temperature within each battery cell has a non-uniform distribution.

The Joule heating effect within battery passive zones can be optionally included in the simulation. The set of equations solved is the same as in the CHT and FMU-CHT coupling methods. The heat generation is computed from the circuit network calculation.