Control and Management of PV Integrated Charging Facilities for PEVs

The ongoing research in the field of plug-in electric vehicles (PEVs) and the growing global awareness for a pollution free environment, will lead to an increase in the number of PEVs in the near future. The proliferation of these PEVs will add stress to the already overloaded power grid creating new challenges for the distribution network. To mitigate this issue several researchers have proposed the idea of charging PEVs using renewables coupled with smart charging strategies. This chapter reviews the current literature on the state of the art infrastructure proposed for PEV charging facilities integrated with photovoltaic system. The proposed control algorithms, various smart charging techniques and different power electronic topologies for photovoltaic charging facilities (PCFs) are reviewed. Studies assessing the ability of photovoltaic charging stations to minimize the loading on distribution transformers are assessed. Finally, a simple and unique energy management algorithm for a PV based workplace charging facility based on dc link voltage sensing is presented. The power needed to charge the plug-in electric vehicles comes from grid-connected photovoltaic (PV) generation or the utility or both. The efficacy of the proposed algorithm is validated through simulation and experimental results.