Design of a Level-3 electric vehicle charging station using a 1-MW solar system via the distributed maximum power point tracking technique

Abstract

Solar power is mostly influenced by solar irradiation, weather conditions, solar array mismatches and partial shading conditions. Therefore, before installing solar arrays, it is necessary to simulate and determine the possible power generated. Maximum power point tracking is needed in order to make sure that, at any time, the maximum power will be extracted from the photovoltaic system. However, maximum power point tracking is not a suitable solution for mismatches and partial shading conditions. To overcome the drawbacks of maximum power point tracking due to mismatches and shadows, distributed maximum power point tracking is utilized in this paper. The solar farm can be distributed in different ways, including one DC–DC converter per group of modules or per module. In this paper, distributed maximum power point tracking per module is implemented, which has the highest efficiency. This technology is applied to electric vehicles (EVs) that can be charged with a Level 3 charging station in <1 hour. However, the problem is that charging an EV in <1 hour puts a lot of stress on the power grid, and there is not always enough peak power reserve in the existing power grid to charge EVs at that rate. Therefore, a Level 3 (fast DC) EV charging station using a solar farm by implementing distributed maximum power point tracking is utilized to address this issue. Finally, the simulation result is reported using MATLAB®, LTSPICE and the System Advisor Model. Simulation results show that the proposed 1-MW solar system will provide 5 MWh of power each day, which is enough to fully charge ~120 EVs each day. Additionally, the use of the proposed photovoltaic system benefits the environment by removing a huge amount of greenhouse gases and hazardous pollutants. For example, instead of supplying EVs with power from coal-fired power plants, 1989 pounds of CO2 will be eliminated from the air per hour.