A Comparison between Three-Phase Conventional Two-Stage AC-DC and Single-Stage Matrix Converter Approaches

Abstract

The growing popularity of Electric Vehicles (EVs) makes a growing need to build energy-efficient battery chargers to charge EVs batteries faster than before. Newly designed EVs have larger battery capacities and higher voltage ranges than their previous versions. Therefore, the recent onboard battery pack voltages are increased to 700-800 V ranges, to increase the battery capacities and reduce the charging time. On-Board Chargers (OBCs) are an essential part of plug-in battery EVs and hybrid vehicles. The most recent stage in the technological development of the available battery chargers is the two-stage approach. In this paper, the available two-stage ac-dc approach and single-stage matrix converter are compared comprehensively in terms of size, efficiency, and applicability to see which approach is more efficient. Finally, both of the structures are simulated in PSIM software with 12 kW output power, 800 V battery voltage, 100 kHz high switching frequency, and three-phase 50 Hz and 230 V grid to validate the theoretical analysis.