IoT-based smart energy management for solar vanadium redox flow battery powered switchable building glazing satisfying the HVAC system of EV charging stations

Abstract

In the countries like India, where the ambient temperature is higher during the significant span of the year, safe and efficient operation is needed for the delicate electronic panels and controllers installed in Electric Vehicle (EV) charging stations. Therefore, for the first time in this work, solar-battery storage integrated switchable glazing topology has been applied for providing day-time passive heating ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) in EV charging station control rooms. The EV charging station has been accompanied by a solar PV source installed on its roof-top to promote green energy and sustainable transportation. Vanadium redox flow battery (VRFB) has been integrated with the system to ensure energy security as a long-life energy storage solution. To satisfy the building glazing load demand under real-time dynamic environmental conditions, an Internet of Things (IoT) based smart scheduling of solar PV, VRFB storage and the local distribution grid has been demonstrated. The performance of the proposed system has been validated under four different transient scenarios; sunny, intermittent cloudy, prolonged cloudy and low solar irradiance with frequent grid outages. The proposed solution is a generalized one and thus can be very useful for up scaled capacity as well.