Design and Operation of a Hybrid Charging Station for Plug-in Electric Vehicles

The adoption of electric vehicles (EVs) is steadily growing as a result of rising environmental fears and petrol prices. However, EVs operation only becomes completely ecologically friendly when the power they are using originates from a renewable energy source. This paper presents a design of a hybrid charging station that can be used for ac and dc plug-in EVs. The dc charger can charge two types of EVs batteries with 48V and 240V, while the ac charger has two outlets with line-line voltages of 220V and 380V for EVs with on-board charger (OBC). Three different types of energy sources to ensure fulltime operation all over the day and night are considered: Photovoltaic (PV) cells as the main energy source, battery storage system (BSS), and the electrical grid. Different operating modes are described in detail. An energy management system is proposed to control the power flow based on the operating mode. Several simulation results validating the effectiveness of the proposed design are presented.