8. Power Electronic Converter Topologies for EV/PHEV Charging

When defining the technical goals for a distributed power converter system to be used in a PV-powered, grid-tied carport, suitable compromises must be made, in order to contain costs while providing acceptable performance. Essentially, the main design objective is dictated by the fact that the carport will be a public or semi-public structure. Hence, it is crucial that the system is robust, reliable, and offers high availability. It was already ascertained that both the PV resource and the power conversion system must be distributed, providing flexibility and redundancy, while choosing topologies that are characterized by low component count and stress levels, in order to ensure a high Mean Time Between Failures (MTBF). MTBF will broadly be referred to as “reliability” henceforth, in this thesis.