Electric vehicles on-board battery charger for the future smart grids

The recent and massive investments in Electric Vehicles (EVs) reveal a change of paradigm in the transports sector and the proliferation of EVs will contribute to an effective reduction in the emissions of greenhouse gases. Nevertheless, for the electrical power grids EVs will be extra loads, which will require the demand energy to charge their batteries. With the advent of the Smart Grids, besides the usual battery charging mode (Grid-to-Vehicle – G2V), where the batteries receives energy from the power grid, arises a new concept for the users of EVs and for the power grid market, denominated as Vehicle-to-Grid (V2G). In the V2G operation mode, EVs return to the power grid part of the energy stored in their batteries. The V2G concept requires the use of battery chargers for the EVs with bidirectional power flow capability and bidirectional communication with the Smart Grids through Information and Communication Technology (ICT) applications. It is important to highlight that the proliferation of EVs and the impact of their battery chargers on the power grid quality is a matter of concern, since conventional chargers present current harmonics and power factor problems. In this paper it is presented the preliminary studies resulting from a PhD work about a bidirectional battery charger for EVs, which was designed to operate in collaboration with the power grid as G2V and V2G through an ICT application. In this way, it is expectable to contribute to the technological innovation of the electric mobility in Smart Grids. To assess the behavior of the proposed battery charger under different scenarios of operation, a prototype has been developed, and some simulation and experimental results of the battery charger are presented.Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT); FEDER Funds, through the Operational Programme for Competitiveness Factors – COMPETE, and by National Funds through FCT – Foun- dation for Science and Technology of Portugal, under the projects: FCOMP-01-0124- FEDER-022674 an d PTDC/EEA-EEL/104569/200

Operation modes of battery chargers for electric vehicles in the future smart grids

This paper presents an on-board bidirectional battery charger for Electric Vehicles (EVs), which operates in three different modes: Grid-to- Vehicle (G2V), Vehicle-to-Grid (V2G), and Vehicle-to-Home (V2H). Through these three operation modes, using bidirectional communications based on Information and Communication Technologies (ICT), it will be possible to exchange data between the EV driver and the future smart grids. This collaboration with the smart grids will strengthen the collective awareness systems, contributing to solve and organize issues related with energy resources and power grids. This paper presents the preliminary studies that results from a PhD work related with bidirectional battery chargers for EVs. Thus, in this paper is described the topology of the on-board bidirectional battery charger and the control algorithms for the three operation modes. To validate the topology it was developed a laboratory prototype, and were obtained experimental results for the three operation modes.FEDER Funds, through the Operational Programme for Competitiveness Factors – COMPETE, and by National Funds through FCT – Foundation for Science and Technology of Portugal, under the project FCOMP-01-0124- FEDER-022674, and QREN project AAC n.º36/SI/2009 – 1384

Electric vehicles on-board battery charger for the future smart grids

The recent and massive investments in Electric Vehicles (EVs) reveal a change of paradigm in the transports sector and the proliferation of EVs will contribute to an effective reduction in the emissions of greenhouse gases. Nevertheless, for the electrical power grids EVs will be extra loads, which will require the demand energy to charge their batteries. With the advent of the Smart Grids, besides the usual battery charging mode (Grid-to-Vehicle G2V), where the batteries receives energy from the power grid, arises a new concept for the users of EVs and for the power grid market, denominated as Vehicle-to-Grid (V2G). In the V2G operation mode, EVs return to the power grid part of the energy stored in their batteries. The V2G concept requires the use of battery chargers for the EVs with bidirectional power flow capability and bidirectional communication with the Smart Grids through Information and Communication Technology (ICT) applications. It is important to highlight that the proliferation of EVs and the impact of their battery chargers on the power grid quality is a matter of concern, since conventional chargers present current harmonics and power factor problems. In this paper it is presented the preliminary studies resulting from a PhD work about a bidirectional battery charger for EVs, which was designed to operate in collaboration with the power grid as G2V and V2G through an ICT application. In this way, it is expectable to contribute to the technological innovation of the electric mobility in Smart Grids. To assess the behavior of the proposed battery charger under different scenarios of operation, a prototype has been developed, and some simulation and experimental results of the battery charger are presented. Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT); FEDER Funds, through the Operational Programme for Competitiveness Factors COMPETE, and by National Funds through FCT Foun- dation for Science and Technology of Portugal, under the projects: FCOMP-01-0124- FEDER-022674 an d PTDC/EEA-EEL/104569/2008 Document type: Part of book or chapter of boo

Operation Modes of Battery Chargers for Electric Vehicles in the Future Smart Grids

This paper presents an on-board bidirectional battery charger for Electric Vehicles (EVs), which operates in three different modes: Grid-to- Vehicle (G2V), Vehicle-to-Grid (V2G), and Vehicle-to-Home (V2H). Through these three operation modes, using bidirectional communications based on Information and Communication Technologies (ICT), it will be possible to exchange data between the EV driver and the future smart grids. This collaboration with the smart grids will strengthen the collective awareness systems, contributing to solve and organize issues related with energy resources and power grids. This paper presents the preliminary studies that results from a PhD work related with bidirectional battery chargers for EVs. Thus, in this paper is described the topology of the on-board bidirectional battery charger and the control algorithms for the three operation modes. To validate the topology it was developed a laboratory prototype, and were obtained experimental results for the three operation modes. FEDER Funds, through the Operational Programme for Competitiveness Factors COMPETE, and by National Funds through FCT Foundation for Science and Technology of Portugal, under the project FCOMP-01-0124- FEDER-022674, and QREN project AAC n.º36/SI/2009 13844 Document type: Part of book or chapter of boo

New opportunities and perspectives for the electric vehicle operation in smart grids and smart homes scenarios

New perspectives for the electric vehicle (EV) operation in smart grids and smart homes context are presented. Nowadays, plugged-in EVs are equipped with on-board battery chargers just to perform the charging process from the electrical power grid (G2V – grid-to-vehicle mode). Although this is the main goal of such battery chargers, maintaining the main hardware structure and changing the digital control algorithm, the on-board battery chargers can also be used to perform additional operation modes. Such operation modes are related with returning energy from the batteries to the power grid (V2G- vehicle-to-grid mode), constraints of the electrical installation where the EV is plugged-in (iG2V – improved grid-tovehicle mode), interface of renewables, and contributions to improve the power quality in the electrical installation. Besides the contributions of the EV to reduce oil consumption and greenhouse gas emissions associated to the transportation sector, through these additional operation modes, the EV also represents an important contribution for the smart grids and smart homes paradigms. Experimental results introducing the EV through the aforementioned interfaces and operation modes are presented. An on-board EV battery charger prototype was used connected to the power grid for a maximum power of 3.6 kW.This work has been supported by COMPETE: POCI-01-0145-FEDER-007043 and FCT – Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia within the Project Scope: UID/CEC/00319/2013. This work is financed by the ERDF – European Regional Development Fund through the Operational Programme for Competitiveness and Internationalisation Ǧ COMPETE 2020 Programme, and by National Funds through the Portuguese funding agency, FCT - Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, within project SAICTPAC/0004/2015- POCI- 01-0145-FEDER-016434.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Vehicle electrification: technologies, challenges and a global perspective for smart grids

Nowadays, due to economic and climate concerns, the private transportation sector is shifting for the vehicle electrification, mainly supported by electric and hybrid plug-in vehicles. For this new reality, new challenges about operation modes are emerging, demanding a cooperative and dynamic operation with the electrical power grid, guaranteeing a stable integration without omitting the power quality for the grid-side and for the vehicle-side. Besides the operation modes, new attractive and complementary technologies are offered by the vehicle electrification in the context of smart grids, which are valid for both on-board and off-board systems. In this perspective, this book chapter presents a global perspective and deals with challenges for the vehicle electrification, covering the key technologies toward a sustainable future. Among others, the flowing topics are covered: (1) Overview of power electronics structures for battery charging systems, including on-board and off-board systems; (2) State-of-the-art of communication technologies for application in the context of vehicular electrification, smart grids and smart homes; (3) Challenges and opportunities concerning wireless power transfer with bidirectional interface to the electrical grid; (4) Future perspectives about bidirectional power transfer between electric vehicles (vehicle-to-vehicle operation mode); (5) Unified technologies, allowing to combine functionalities of a bidirectional interface with the electrical grid and motor driver based on a single system; and (6) Smart grids and smart homes scenarios and accessible opportunities about operation modes.Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (FCT

Integrated system for traction and battery charging of electric vehicles with universal interface to the power grid

This paper proposes an integrated system for traction and battery charging of electric vehicles (EVs) with universal interface to the power grid. In the proposed system, the power electronics converters comprising the traction drive system are also used for the battery charging system, reducing the required hardware, meaning the integrated characteristic of the system. Besides, this interface is universal, since it can be performed with the three main types of power grids, namely: (1) Single-phase AC power grids; (2) Three-phase AC power grids; (3) DC power grids. In these three types of interfaces with the power grid, as well as in the traction drive operation mode, bidirectional operation is possible, framing the integration of this system into an EV in the context of smart grids. Moreover, the proposed system endows an EV with an on-board fast battery charger, whose operation allows either fast or slow battery charging. The main contributes of the proposed system are detailed in the paper, and simulation results are presented in order to attain the feasibility of the proposed system.This work has been supported by COMPETE: POCI-01-0145-FEDER-007043 and FCT -Fundacao para a Ciencia e Tecnologia within the Project Scope: UID/CEC/00319/2013. This work has been supported by FCT within the Project Scope DAIPESEV - Development of Advanced Integrated Power Electronic Systems for Electric Vehicles: PTDC/EEI-EEE/30382/2017. Mr. Tiago Sousa is supported by the doctoral scholarship SFRH/BD/134353/2017 granted by the Portuguese FCT agency. This work is part of the FCT project 0302836 NORTE-01-0145-FEDER-030283

Impact of electric vehicles on power quality in a smart grid context

The large dependency of the imported fossil fuels and the soaring oil prices, makes essential the look for alternatives to the traditional people transportation system. The natural bet is the electric mobility, namely Electric Vehicles (EV), and Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicles (PHEV). This way, in this paper is analyzed the potential impacts of the battery charging systems on the grid power quality, in a Smart Grid context. It is considered the current consumed, according to a typical electric consumption profile, and the voltage degradation for a large number of houses. Two different types of EV batteries chargers were considered: a traditional charger; and a smart charger with sinusoidal current consumption and unitary power factor. It presents simulation results of the integration of EVs and PHEVs in terms of power quality, and experimental results of a smart charger which was specially developed for EV charging and that allows mitigation of the power quality degradation.Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT

Unification requirements of electric vehicle charging infrastructure

By increasingelectric vehicles in numbers and getting the public attention, availability, safety and accessibility of its charging infrastructure are key factorsto users’ satisfaction. Charging infrastructure in electric vehicle industry can have a role as an interface for exchanging information among other components as well. Currently, lack of universality in electric vehicle industry has caused anisolation in networks of electric vehicles. This isolationwill cause difficulty in having an aggregated set of information about electric vehicles and their consumption pattern. The paper reviews current charging infrastructure and the possibility of providing universality based on candidate protocols and technologies. © 2016 Institute of Advanced Engineering and Science