In recent years, the use of renewable energy sources is increasing drastically in several sectors, which leads to its role in the automobile industry to charge electric vehicle (EV) batteries. In this paper, a photovoltaic (PV) array-fed off-board battery charging system using a bidirectional interleaved DC-DC converter (BIDC) is proposed for light-weight EVs. This off-board charging system is capable of operating in dual mode, thereby supplying power to the EV battery from the PV array in standstill conditions and driving the DC load by the EV battery during running conditions. This dual mode operation is accomplished by the use of a three-phase BIDC. The model of the proposed system is simulated in MATLAB/Simulink software while a hardware prototype of 250 W is fabricated and tested in the laboratory. Simulation and experimental results are furnished in this paper.

During the recent decade, the automobile industry is booming with the evolution of electric vehicle (EV). Battery charging system plays a major role in the development of EVs. Charging of EV battery from the grid increases its load demand. This leads to propose a photovoltaic (PV) array-based off-board EV battery charging system in this study. Irrespective of solar irradiations, the EV battery is to be charged constantly which is achieved by employing a backup battery bank in addition to the PV array. Using the sepic converter and three-phase bidirectional DC-DC converter, the proposed system is capable of charging the EV battery during both sunshine hours and non-sunshine hours. During peak sunshine hours, the backup battery gets charged along with the EV battery and during non-sunshine hours, the backup battery supports the charging of EV battery. The proposed charging system is simulated using Simulink in the MATLAB software and an experimental prototype is fabricated and tested in the laboratory and the results are furnished in this study.