Clean Hydrogen from Waste Management for Fueling Fuel Cells in Charging Electric Vehicles and DC Power Systems for Emergency Response Systems in Healthcare

This study explores the causes of ineffective solid waste management services in Tanzania’s cities. It is inspired by the fact that less than 35% of the generated waste in the country is collected. The study focuses on cities as they are accounting for 15.5% of the total generated waste in the country despite making up only 3.2% (6) of the total local government authorities (LGAs) (137). The study variables include data availability, waste minimization initiatives, financial reliability, service reliability, technological flexibility, convenient waste collection systems, responsive market, supportive legal framework, and stakeholder inclusivity. Literature review, direct observation, interviews, and questionnaires form part of data collection techniques. Questionnaires were distributed to 184 (100%) LGAs with over 95% responses. Zonal consultative meetings were conducted in six (6) zones representing 26 regions of Tanzania’s Mainland and attended by 26(100%) Regional Environmental Experts; and 56 (30%) District Environmental Management Officers (DEMOs). The findings show inadequacy in waste minimization initiatives, financing, stakeholders’ inclusiveness, data availability, waste management options, technological flexibility, and service reliability. The findings also show the presence of a supportive legal framework and a responsive market for the provision of waste management services. To this end the study recommends; Improvement of waste management infrastructure; promotion of waste minimization initiatives, enhancement of waste management financing, and formalization of informal waste collection service providers.

Sustainable integration of wind and grid resources for electric vehicles charging in low wind speed region: A techno-economic assessment

In order to pursuit a more eco-friendly lifestyle, many changes are being done to our daily life. One of these changes is the adoption of electric vehicles (EVs). These zero emission and electricity driven vehicles have been proved to be effective in reducing roadside air pollution and green house gas emission. Not only are they able to assist in pollution reduction, EVs can also utilize renewable energy resources, making them much greener than conventional gasoline vehicles. The Hong Kong government has been promoting the adoption of EVs since 2010. They have been providing different kinds of incentives, such as tax exemptions and subsidies to companies for conducting EV trails. The government want to attract more people or companies to adopt EVs. Despite efforts of the government, EV is yet to be a significant kind of vehicle in Hong Kong. In my dissertation, I suggested a new way of promotion for EV adoption: integration of smart grid technology and EVs. The current smart grid technology development in Hong Kong is at a very primitive stage, there is a lot of space for improvement. For my study, I had conducted an opinion survey on people’s perception of both EV adoption and the introduction of smart grid. The survey results showed the top three reasons for people not to buy EVs are high price, insufficient range & battery capacity, and insufficient EV chargers. More importantly, the survey showed the willingness to purchase EVs increased from 23% at the current situation to 56% with smart grid being applied widely. From this result, I concluded that the use of smart grid technology would increase people’s willingness to purchase EV. Based on these results, I have suggested the government and electricity companies should focus future EV promotion in the following areas: solution to range anxiety of people, smart grid technology in Hong Kong, dynamic electricity tariff system, integration of renewable energy into generation fuel mix and development on V2G application. At the end of my paper, I have given out some possible ways of improvement for the government to better its EV promotion policies in the future. The suggested improvements are focused on specific subsidy schemes for EV upgrades, regulations for EV charger use and construction, and development of a steering committee for smart grid adoption. Possible topics for future studies base on this paper are also suggested in the ending chapter.

Electric vehicles (EVs) could be used to address the issues of environmental pollution and the depletion of non-renewable energy resources. EVs, which are energized by a battery storage system, are becoming attractive because they keep the environment clean. Furthermore, the cost of EVs is becoming cheaper. Thus, EVs will become a significant load on utility distribution system in the future. EV chargers play a significant role in the expansion of EVs. The input current of an EV charger with a high total harmonic distortion (THD) and a high ripple distortion of the output voltage can impact battery life and battery charging time. Furthermore, the high cost and large size of the chargers are considered other issues in EV development. This work presents the complete design process of a universal EV charger with a special focus on its control algorithms. In this regard, a novel control algorithm based on the integration of voltage-oriented control (VOC) and the sinusoidal pulse-width modulation (SPWM) technique is proposed to ensure effective Levels 1, 2, and 3 battery charging. A simulation of the universal EV charger was conducted and assessed in MATLAB–Simulink. Moreover, a laboratory prototype was constructed with a TMS320F28335 digital signal processor (DSP) programmed as the controller to validate its operation and performance. The findings show that the proposed charger is able to provide a controllable and constant charging voltage for a variety of EVs, with an input current of low total harmonic distortion (THD) and an almost unity power factor.

An Electric Vehicle (EV) charger or Electric Vehicle Supply Equipment (EVSE) is a piece of equipment that supplies electrical power for charging plug–in electric vehicles. Although batteries can only be charged with Direct Current (DC) power, most electric vehicles have an onboard Alternative Current AC—to—DC converter and most fully electric cars can accept both AC and DC power. The adoption of EVs can bring about significant relief in noise pollution and also environmental pollution if the required electricity is generated using renewable sources. DC charging stations of various levels are commonly equipped with multiple ports of various levels to be able to charge a wide variety of EVs. EVSEs are found at various facilities such as street–side or retail shopping centers, government facilities, and other parking areas. To ensure a sustainable environment by reducing the carbon emissions from vehicles, the use of EVs needs to be promoted. The need for having Electric Vehicle Charging Stations (EVCS) in any region depends upon the demand and cluster density of EVs in that region and is a major factor in the process of promoting the use of EVs and facilitating sustainable tourism using cleaner fuels. The authors of this study have located the various types and numbers of EVSEs throughout all the states and union territories of India, showing the emerging use of EVs so that EV users can conveniently locate charging stations and plan their routes accordingly. Furthermore, other citizens may be encouraged to own and use EVs for better environmental sustainability.

A fully decentralized controlled (FDC) electric vehicle (EV) charger, where its design is intended to mitigate the charging impact on power grids, is proposed in this paper. The proposed FDC EV charger uses the parameters measured from the power grid, EV charger and EV battery pack to adjust the charging current. Fuzzy logic control is used in this paper to integrate these measured parameters into the proposed FDC EV charger. As the proposed charger can be realized without a centralized control center and information exchanges between EV chargers, an FDC scheme for EV charger can therefore be effectively achieved. A prototype of the proposed FDC EV charger with a rated power of 500 W is implemented. Experimental results verify that the proposed charger can automatically adjust the charging current according to variations in the power grid and EV. Simulations analyze the impact of 100 EVs with a rated power of 7 kW charged simultaneously. Simulation results show that the EV charging impact on power grids can be effectively mitigated by the proposed FDC EV chargers.

Chapter 15 - Demonstration of EV chargers on real testbed and its impact on the grid

This paper presents a bridgeless totem pole boost converter (BLTPBC) fed synchronous full bridge inductor-inductor-capacitor (FBLLC) converter based electric vehicle (EV) charger as a fundamental building block for larger capacity EV infrastructure. This EV charger comprises of BLTPBC as a front-end power factor correction (PFC) converter followed by a high efficiency synchronous FBLLC converter for DC-DC conversion. The PFC TPBLB is operated in continuous inductor conduction mode at fixed frequency, while the control of synchronous FBLLC converter is performed using pulse frequency modulation (PFM). The performance of this EV charger is deeply analysed during steady state and transient conditions by a developed proto-type and are discussed and presented. The performance of this EV charger in a large EV structure composed by paralleling these chargers is also presented by virtue of its short circuit performance.

This paper presents simple equivalent models of electric vehicle (EV) chargers, based on the measurements of a range of actual EVs. The developed models of the EV chargers are capable of correctly reproducing instantaneous input current waveforms, retaining all relevant electrical characteristics, including harmonic content. To analyse the effects of increased penetrations EV chargers on low-voltage network, the developed EV charger models are combined with the models of existing loads, as a part of the aggregate residential load mix.

The control of Electric Vehicle (EV) charging to take full advantage of the available distribution network infrastructure represents a cornerstone for large-scale EV adoption and the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. In this paper, we propose a novel distributed anytime algorithm to solve the Network Utility Maximization (NUM) problem with application to real-time EV charging control. We analyze its convergence conditions for synchronous and asynchronous execution. Beyond this, we evaluate our approach using real data and show its advantages against the standard dual decomposition approach. The control scheme in our approach is based on the notion of dynamic budgets defined by the protection devices and allocated to each EV charger. Given the system's current state, we solve EV charging as a NUM problem in a distributed manner and obtain closed form expressions for computations performed by EV chargers and protection devices. To cope with large EV numbers, their spatial distribution, and the highly dynamic state changes of the power grid, our approach allows for distributed computation capable of yielding feasible, albeit suboptimal, control values at any time.

Balanced three-phase four-wire distribution grids can host significantly more distributed generation and electric vehicles. Three-phase photovoltaic (PV) inverters and electric vehicle (EV) chargers can be adapted to transfer power from highly loaded to less loaded phases, without overloading the inverter or charger. Grid conditions will be improved due to a more balanced operation of the network and more PV panels and EVs can be connected before the limits of the network are reached. A classic coordinated charging strategy for EVs is adapted in this paper. It is shown that the charging of EVs can be improved when power can be transferred from one phase to another. Using PV inverters with a balancing inverter, the power injected in each phase will become a controllable variable as the total amount of produced power does not necessarily need to be equally divided across the three phases. The improvements made by using EV chargers and PV inverters that can balance the network are investigated. Several load flow simulations with realistic data show a positive effect on the system losses, the grid voltage, and voltage unbalance. Finally, a local controller is proposed to control the balancing between the phases when a real-time communication channel is not available.

The feasibility of using an interleaved two-leg buck-boost converter (ITBBC) in the design of an electric vehicle (EV) charger must be thoroughly studied to ensure its reliable operation. This paper analyzes the efficacy of using ITBBC at the battery-end point of each EV charger due to some advantages as follows: 1- hindering dc-bus voltage ripples from circulating into the current controller of the grid-side converter, 2- regulating the dc-bus voltage against variable battery voltage which can improve the efficiency of the whole system, and 3- reducing the ripple of the battery current to increase the battery lifetime. The small-signal transfer-function derivation of the studied converter is derived and investigated. An EV charger including ITBBC is designed and implemented. The mentioned advantages of the proposed system are verified by both simulation in MATLAB Simulink and experimental results.

Recently, electrical vehicle (EV) charger demand has been grown rapidly due to electrical vehicle development, so we designed a full SiC power module for EV charger system. The power consumption and thermal performance of EV charger module were evaluated by simulation software. Besides, we did the thermal resistance measurement of full SiC module and calibrated the Rjc (junction-case) .The simulation results show that we can reduce the size of heatsink because of higher system efficiency caused by full SiC power module. The advantage of using SiC chip in EV charger power module lose less power than silicon power module because of SiC chip’s electrical characteristic.

Integrating the electric vehicle into grid or microgrid has been receiving more and more attention in recent years. Typically, the electric vehicle (EV) chargers with their power batteries have been developed for vehicle-to-home(V2H) applications, acting as a backup generation to supply emergency power directly to a home. Traditional EV chargers in V2H applications mainly consist of DC/DC and DC/AC stages, which complicate the control algorithm and result in low conversion efficiency. In order to solve this problem, a novel EV charger is proposed for V2H applications. It can boost the battery voltage and output AC voltage with only one-stage power conversion. Also, the DC, 1-phase and 3-phase loads can be fed with the proposed single-stage EV charger. The system control strategy is also provided to deal with versatile load variations. Finally, the performance evaluation results verify the effectiveness of the proposed solution.

Mapping tools can play an important role in incorporating equity into planning, implementing, and evaluating investments in electric vehicle (EV) charging stations, also referred to as EV chargers or electric vehicle supply equipment (EVSE). Federal, state, and local organizations need methodologies for using mapping tools as they pursue equity-focused goals to ensure that the benefits of investments in EV chargers flow to energy and environmental justice (EEJ) underserved communities. This report provides examples of how to apply mapping tools to identify priority locations for installing EV chargers that may benefit EEJ underserved communities through four EV charger planning approaches: corridor charging, community charging, fleet electrification, and diversity in STEM and workforce development. It also explores various methodologies for calculating low-public EVSE density. Ensuring that the benefits of EV charger investments flow to underserved communities involves prioritizing locally identified needs and incorporating community input when choosing charging station locations. Installing EV chargers in a census tract identified as an EEJ underserved community does not inherently mean that those EV chargers provide benefits to residents of that community. In addition, representatives of historically disadvantaged communities or environmental justice communities have concerns that installing EV chargers in their communities could potentially exacerbate or propagate existing inequities. While the methodologies described in this report may help identify priority census tracts for equity-focused EV charger investment, additional community engagement and site evaluation are necessary to determine whether EV chargers are accessible, affordable, and convenient to EEJ underserved community residents and what benefits the local community is looking to realize with EV charger installations. This report is the culmination of many discussions with project leaders from DOE-funded projects deploying EV chargers in communities across the nation, organizations representing EEJ underserved communities, state agencies developing EV investment plans, utilities making major EV investments, and DOE national laboratory experts working in transportation electrification. The authors distributed a draft report for peer review, and reviewer comments are summarized in this report. These methodologies are likely to evolve as more EV charger funding programs are implemented and more real-world data is available to measure the effectiveness of strategies for incorporating equity in EV charger deployment projects. Continued efforts to document best practices and critically evaluate whether equity-focused programs achieve their goals are needed as transportation electrification proceeds at the local, regional, and national levels.