Evaluation of topologies for a solar powered bidirectional electric vehicle charger

Charging of electric vehicles (EVs) from solar energy provides a sustainable means to power EVs in the future. A comparison of topologies for a three‐port converter to charge EVs directly from photovoltaic (PV) panels is presented in this study. The grid‐connected EV charger has a nominal rating of 10 kW and is bidirectional, enabling vehicle‐to‐grid operation. The topologies are optimally designed considering different switching frequencies, silicon carbide devices, magnetic cores and number of interleaved stages. Nine topologies are compared using a comparison framework, and the best topology is chosen based on the number of components, converter efficiency, volume, controllability and current ripple. The analysis shows that the best topology is a three‐port converter with a central direct current link with a 3‐leg interleaved boost converter (IBC) for the PV, two‐level inverter with sinusoidal modulation for the grid and a 4‐phase interleaved flyback converter for the EV. The loss models built are experimentally verified using a 3‐leg IBC.