Multiport DC-DC Converter with Differential Power Processing for Fast EV Charging Stations

Abstract

With the growing interest in owning electric vehicles due to increased environmental awareness and uncertain energy security together with the development of Li-ion batteries, quietness, and trouble-free operation, it is urgent to develop charging stations that are fast enough to supply the vehicles with energy conveniently, as in case of conventional petrol stations. The main reason that hinders the spread of fast charging stations is the installation cost, comprising the infrastructure and converter costs. In this article, a multiport DC-DC converter with differential power processing stages is proposed for Electric Vehicle (EV) fast charging stations, which results in a considerable reduction in the cost of using converters while achieving high efficiency. The proposed topology consists of two paths for the power flow (outer and inner loops) for EV battery charging with main and auxiliary DC-DC converters in the outer loop; all the ports are connected in series with the main supply, where the bulk power is being transferred. The main DC-DC converter injects a series voltage to control the power in the outer loop. The auxiliary DC-DC converters are rated at a fractional power that controls the partial power supplied to each port through the inner loops. Thanks to the fractional power processed by the auxiliary converter with the remaining power fed to the battery through the main converter, the proposed architecture enables simultaneous charging of multiple electric vehicles with better efficiency, lower cost, and the capability of providing a fault tolerance feature. A PWM control scheme for the converters to achieve bi-directional power flow in the partially rated DC-DC converters is discussed for the proposed system. Moreover, a practical down-scaled hardware prototype is designed to validate the functionality, control scheme, and effectiveness of the proposed topology in different case studies being investigated. The efficiency of the proposed converter is compared to the conventional configuration.

Grid-Vehicle-Grid (G2V2G) Efficient Power Transmission: An Overview of Concept, Operations, Benefits, Concerns, and Future Challenges

“…Conversion of bidirectional energy flow for HEV applications was analyzed in [41], and good agreement was reached when transferring voltages from different DC voltage levels. The three-phase charging converter (AC-DC), DC-DC Bi-directional converter, and discharging technique were overviewed in [42] and presented convincing efficiency for PHEVs. Thus, it can be said that EVs can charge and discharge when they are in the parking lot and sitting in idle conditions.…”

On Controlling the Lithium-ion Battery Charging

“…SYSTEM BLOCK DIAGRAM DC chargers convert the three-phase AC voltage into the desired DC voltage in two stages: an AC/DC rectification stage that converts the three-phase mains into intermediate DC voltage followed by a DC/DC stage which converts the intermediate DC voltage into a controlled DC voltage fed to the batteries [14].…”