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.

In this paper, an excitation method for a three-phase wireless power transfer system for electric vehicle charging is proposed. The semi-definite programming relaxation current optimization model (SRCOM) is developed to derive transmitter coil currents for the multi-phase system that minimizes the coil loss through optimizing the current distribution among transmitter coils. The power factor constraints for each phase are developed to maintain high power factors in each phase and achieve soft switching for the high power phases. Semi-definite programming relaxation is adopted to convert the non-convex power factor constraint into convex form. Tightening constraints are introduced to compensate for the relaxation and ensure solution feasibility. Simulation has verified SRCOM can improve the power factor under different receiver misalignment scenarios thereby reducing inverter switching loss. This comes at the cost of a small increase in coil conduction loss.

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.

The technical challenges associated with distributed generation along with the increased adoption of electric vehicles has motivated the development of new configurations for dc microgrids. In this paper, a novel unidirectional multi-port power converter acts as the building block for interfacing different configurations of PV energy conversion systems, allowing it to reach high efficiency for a wide range of input power. Additionally, depending on the connection of the sources, the converter can act as a buck-boost converter or a buck converter, where the former offers wider input voltage range and the latter offers higher efficiency. Additionally, a sum/difference control scheme suitable for both configurations is presented. Simulation results are provided for a 32 kW PV system, establishing a comparison between the two configurations and validating the proposed topology and control scheme.

The demand for increased drive range has motivated research in fast charging solutions for the electric vehicle. This work proposes an integrated charger based on the dual inverter to enable rapid electric vehicle charging from the AC or DC grid without additional DC/DC converters. Simulation studies demonstrate functionality of constant current - constant voltage control and energy balancing of dual Li-ion battery packs. In addition, the proposed topology performs charging in a wide battery voltage range previously unattainable using an integrated charger based on the single traction drive. This topology also offers reduced input/output current ripple using a proposed switching method.

This paper proposes a high step-up, transformerless, dc/dc converter suitable for applications where high efficiency at low power throughput is required. The proposed converter achieves high step-up dc/dc conversion through a resonant LC tank and realizes high-efficiency operation via the softswitching enabled by this resonant network. Flat efficiency is obtained via discontinuous conduction mode (DCM) operation of the converter. A burst operating mode is proposed for achieving increased efficiency operation. Finally, a 100V/800V, 650W prototype is implemented to experimentally validate the converter's operation, and flat efficiencies are measured over a wide operating range.

This paper introduces a reactive power control method for a grid tied single phase Voltage Sourced Inverter (VSI), which is used for residential photovoltaic (PV) power integration. The focus is on designing a low complexity grid synchronization method, which decouples the active and reactive power component so that each component can be controlled independently. The AC current and DC voltage controllers for the VSI are briefly discussed. The design and analysis of the grid synchronization method are described in detail. Experimental results validate the effectiveness of the controller and the reactive power control ability.