PV Based Off-Grid Charging Station for Electric Vehicle

Abstract

Abstract To increase the uses of electric vehicle (EV) at remote locations and minimize the grid burdening in urban areas, an off-grid charging station (OGCS) plays a significant role. The OGCS seeks energy from renewable energy sources (RES). Amongst all RES, the photovoltaic (PV) is the best suitable clean energy source due to abundance and simple installation. However, PV energy fluctuates due to change in irradiance and it can not generate the constant energy. Therefore, an energy storage device is required to meet the energy demand and improve the sustainability of the charging station. Thereby, a system has been proposed which consists of an energy storage system (ESS) along with the PV source and EV charger. The proposed system includes a PV array with a boost converter, two bi-directional converters (BDC) and ESS. The BDC has been used for charging/discharging of the EV and ESS. The energy generated from PV is not sufficient to meet the demand during the absence of or reduced sunlight, thus, the ESS can meet the required demand. On the other hand, while the generation is more than the demand, the ESS utilizes the excess clean energy to make the proposed system stable. This results, a reliable off-grid, efficient and pollution-free EV charging station. Furthermore, the proposed system has been implemented in MATLAB/Simulink environment to verify the system performance.