Are you an EPFL student looking for a semester project?
Work with us on data science and visualisation projects, and deploy your project as an app on top of Graph Search.
This paper proposes a power converter architecture for the implementation of an ultra-fast charging station for electric vehicles (EVs). The versatile converter topology is based on the concept of the Power Electronic Transformer (PET). For the direct transformerless coupling to the medium voltage grid, a Cascaded H-Bridge (CHB) converter is utilized. On the level of each submodule, integrated split battery energy storage elements play the role of power buffers, reducing thus the influence of the charging station on the distribution grid. The power interface between the stationary split storage stage and the EV batteries is performed through the use of parallel-connected dual half-bridge (DHB) DC/DC converters, shifting the isolation requirements to the medium frequency range. By choosing several different submodule configurations for the parallel-connection, a multiport output concept is achieved, implying the ability to charge several EVs simultaneously without the use of additional high-power chargers. All possible charging station operating modes among with the designed necessary control functions are analyzed. The state of charge (SoC) self-balancing mode of the delta-connected CHB converter is also introduced. Finally, the development of a down-scaled laboratory prototype is described and preliminary experimental results are provided.
, , ,
Christophe Ballif, Alejandro Pena Bello, Noémie Alice Yvonne Ségolène Jeannin, Jérémy Dumoulin