Predictive control of plug-in electric vehicle chargers with photovoltaic integration

This paper presents a model predictive control (MPC) for off-board plug-in electric vehicle (PEV) chargers with photovoltaic (PV) integration using two-level four-leg inverter topology. The PEV charger is controlled by a unified controller that incorporates direct power and current MPC to dynamically control decoupled active-reactive power flow in a smart grid environment as well as to control PEV battery charging and discharging reliably. PV power generation with maximum power tracking is seamlessly integrated with the power flow control to provide additional power generation. Fast dynamic response and good steady-state performance under all power flow modes and various environmental conditions are evaluated and analyzed. From the results obtained, the charger demonstrates less than 1.5% total harmonic distortion as well as low active and reactive power ripple of less than 7% and 8% respectively on the grid for all power flow modes. The PEV battery also experiences a low charging and discharging current ripple of less than 2.5%. Therefore, the results indicate the successful implementation of the proposed charger and its control for PV integrated off-board PEV chargers.