Material and degradation effects in lithium-ion batteries are studied in three-electrode cells using electrochemical impedance spectroscopy. But half-cell impedance spectra are often superimposed by distortions caused by the individual cell arrangement. Finite Element Method simulations of the three-electrode cell were applied to identify and quantify these contributions. This study identified two basic mechanisms: (I) a radially inhomogeneous current distribution originating from geometric asymmetry of the electrodes; and (II) a frequency-dependent inhomogeneous current distribution in the electrolyte caused by an electrochemical asymmetry. Mechanism II is caused by different electrode materials, and enhanced when the electrolyte diameter exceeds those of both working and counter electrode. With the help of the FEM model, we evaluated three-electrode cells featuring different reference electrode geometries: (a) point-like, (b) wire and (c) mesh reference electrode. The results of these FEM simulations are shown as half-cell and full-cell impedance data, disclosing the magnitude of distortions and artifacts for each type of reference electrode geometry. The mesh reference electrode, proposed in literature but not widely adopted, showed the largest potential for error-free impedance spectra. The FEM simulations were supported by experiments, comparing a point-like with a mesh reference electrode in a three-electrode cell (see part II). (C) The Author(s) 2016. Published by ECS. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License All rights reserved.