Electric vehicle (EV) charging infrastructure will play a critical role in decarbonization during the next decades, energizing a large share of the transportation sector. This will further increase the enabling role of power electronics converters as an energy transition technology in the widespread adoption of clean energy sources and their efficient use. However, this deep transformation comes with challenges, some of which are already unfolding, such as the slow deployment of charging infrastructure and competing charging standards, and others that will have a long-term impact if not addressed timely, such as the reliability of power converters and power system stability due to loss of system inertia, just to name a few. Nevertheless, the inherent transition toward power systems with higher penetration of power electronics and batteries, together with a layer of communications and information technologies, will also bring opportunities for more flexible and intelligent grid integration and services, which could increase the share of renewable energy in the power grid. This work provides an overview of the existing charging infrastructure ecosystem, covering the different charging technologies for different EV classes, their structure, and configurations, including how they can impact the grid in the future.

A power electronic converter topology and control strategy is presented which allows battery energy storage to be integrated into a wind turbine. The topology leverages an open-end-winding permanent magnet synchronous generator controlled by a dual two-level voltage source converter. The additional degrees of freedom inherent to the proposed system allow for simultaneous control of wind turbine speed and the power flow to the grid. These control objectives are achieved by a power sharing algorithm which distributes the voltage vectors of the two converters in order to achieve desired power flow. An active front end power converter with LCL filter is used to connect the wind turbine and battery to a three-phase electrical grid. Simulation results show the efficacy of the proposed system in regulating the power flow to the grid while simultaneously ensuring wind turbine speed control is achieved.

Galvanic isolation, characterized by the inclusion of a transformer as a conversion stage, is the most commonly used method to eliminate hazardous common-mode (CM) current in grid tied converters. However, this solution tends to harm system efficiency and power density, while increasing costs. This issue is of particular importance for electric vehicle, where the industry is devoting significant resources to improve vehicle power density, cost, and range. This paper proposes a general, systematic method to design nonisolated converters with near zero CM currents. Several options of connection structure are provided, and two converters are designed to elucidate the method. Simulations are performed to demonstrate the CM performance improvement delivered by the proposed solution.

A hybrid modulation approach is proposed in this work, which allows to modulate the switches of the five level neutral point clamped inverter (5LANPC) with different switching frequencies. Some of the switches are controlled with a low switching frequency using six-step modulation and Optimized Pulse Patterns (OPPs), whereas the rest are modulated with a high switching frequency using Carrier-Based Pulse Width Modulation (CB-PWM). Consequently it is sufficient to replace only the latter with SiC technology, whereas the former can stay in conventional Si technology. Furthermore, a pulse pattern optimization method is presented that maximizes the performance of the hybrid modulation regarding the achievable current Total Harmonic Distortion (THD) and the voltage ripple of the flying capacitor.