Battery energy-storage system (BESS) based on the modular multilevel converter (MMC) can flexibly manage the battery packs integrated into submodules, where the battery pack can directly or through a small capacitor connect to the rear-end half-bridge circuit for reducing cost and volume caused by an additional dc–dc converter. But the alternating current ripples will cause substantial additional charge throughput for battery packs and, consequently, reduce the battery lifetime in theory. Therefore, this article proposes a variable dc-link voltage regulation method for a single-phase MMC-BESS. In specific, the phase disposition (PD) modulation scheme is improved to properly bypass the gating signals with unnecessary conduction during operation and the modified gating signals will be rearranged for balancing the states-of-charge and states-of-health. Doing so, the additional charge throughput could be significantly reduced compared with the traditional phase-shift modulation and PD modulation. Even comparing with the ideal dc current charging/discharging, the proposed method will only increase slight additional charge throughput and nearly negligible capacity loss. The experimental results of a 6.6 kW/6.6 kWh single-phase MMC-BESS prototype verified the performance of the proposed method.