Power electronics converters for an electric vehicle fast charging station with energy storage system and renewable energy sources

Abstract

Fast Charging Stations (FCS) are a key element for the wide spreading of Electric Vehicles (EVs), by reducing the charging time to a range between 20 to 40 minutes. However, the integration of FCS causes some adverse impacts on the Power Grid (PG), namely the huge increase in the peak demand during short periods of time. This paper addresses the design of power electronics converters for an EV DC FCS with local storage capability and easy interface of renewables. In the proposed architecture, the energy storage capability is used to smooth the peak power demand and contributes to stabilize the PG. When integrated in a smart grid, the proposed architecture may even return some of the stored energy back to the PG. The accomplishment of the aforementioned objectives requires a set of different power electronics converters, described and discussed along the paper. In order to demonstrate the potentialities of the proposed EV DC FCS architecture, four different case studies were analysed.