Extreme fast charging station architecture for electric vehicles with partial power processing

Abstract

This paper introduces a power delivery architecture for an Extreme Fast Charging (XFC) station that is meant to simultaneously charge multiple electric vehicles (EVs) with a 300-mile range battery pack in about 15 minutes. The proposed approach can considerably improve overall system efficiency as it eliminates redundant power conversion by making use of partial power rated dc-dc converters to charge the individual EVs as opposed to a traditional fast charging station structure based on full rated dedicated charging converters. Partial power processing enables independent charging control over each EV, while processing only a fraction of the total battery charging power. Energy storage (ES) and renewable energy systems such as photovoltaic (PV) arrays can be easily incorporated in the versatile XFC station architecture to minimize the grid impacts due to multi-mega watt charging. A control strategy is discussed for the proposed XFC station. Experimental results from a scaled down laboratory prototype are provided to validate the functionality, feasibility and cost-effectiveness of the proposed XFC station power architecture.