Renewable Energy Powered Plugged-in Hybrid Vehicle Charging System for Sustainable Transportation

Energy transformation by power electronic converters is not feasible without the efficient utilization of renewable energy. The article tries to extend the use of renewable energy to PHEV battery charging. In PHEV, the battery is one of the major sources of stored energy. The converter used for charging these batteries is of crucial concern. The paper addresses various challenges in designing a DC to DC converter for battery charging in DC bus. An optimized converter is designed to work with renewable energy sources to accomplish a high boost ratio, low input current ripple, low output voltage ripple, high power efficiency, and high power density. A combination of two interleaved boost converters is effectively used with the overlap time switching to achieve a high voltage boost ratio in forming the DC bus. Transformer isolation is used to increase reliability and boost ratio further. The secondary side employs a series-connected voltage doubler. The converter boosts an input voltage of 24V to a range of 300-400V. Simulation results have been obtained for a 300W system. Simulation results are validated by a prototype implementation for a 250W system. The converter is studied and analyzed for steady-state and transient state characteristics and the power efficiency obtained is 92.9%.