Technical Considerations on Power Conversion for Electric and Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicle Battery Charging in Photovoltaic Installations

It is now clear that the transportation sector will increasingly rely on electricity and the related infrastructure needed for storage and distribution. At the same time, the source of electricity itself must not be carbon based. Rather, whenever possible, it should depend on environmentally responsible processes. In addition to their ecological benefits, aeolic and photovoltaic (PV) sources are highly scalable, and can be utilized for local generation and delivery, eliminating those energy losses normally associated with long-range grid distribution. This paper analyzes one specific type of renewable, local energy generation, applied to electric vehicle charging requirements. A PV source is explicitly posited, because solar panels can be placed above the vehicle parking space, and double as a shade provider. In the first part of this paper, the optimal requirements for overall system are derived. These will be used in the second part, in order to compare alternate power conditioning circuits for this task.