Page 36 - Power Electronics News - December 2020
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DESIGN Design
Figure 1: EV smart charging block diagram.
to recharge an EV can in fact be produced
INTRODUCTION through a significant contribution from re-
The entire transport sector is undergoing rad- newable sources: energy produced by solar
ical changes, a transformation that for various panels, wind energy, hydroelectric energy,
reasons is increasingly directed towards electric geothermal heat.
mobility, or e-mobility. The key factors driving the
transition towards electric mobility are mainly
three: WHAT IS SMART CHARGING?
With the term Smart Charging we refer to a
▶ environment - we all know how climate system able to monitor, manage and eventually
change has become a matter of primary limit the use of charging devices with the aim
importance, with the consequent need to of optimizing energy consumption. The adjec-
EV Smart Charging reduce greenhouse gas emissions; tive "smart" underlines how this solution is able
to adapt, in an intelligent and flexible way, the
Solutions - The smart ▶ technology, in particular the automotive charging strategy to both the needs of the user of
the vehicle and the power grid.
sector. Electric vehicles (EVs) are acquiring
way to charge ever greater market shares, thanks to ma- As shown in Figure 1, a Smart Charging solution
ture technology and the incentives and plans
for progressive decarbonization decided by
requires a connection and the exchange of data
several governmental organizations. Once the between the electric vehicle, the charging station
By Stefano Lovati, Technical writer at EEWeb
main issues related to reduced autonomy and the electricity supplier (here represented as
and not negligible recharge times have been a service on the cloud). Dedicated and optimized
The term EV Smart Charging refers to a system price of energy and his needs. In the other case, overcome, electric vehicles will be a more software algorithms running on the cloud allow
capable of monitoring, using and limiting the the energy supplier intervenes directly in the sustainable alternative to petrol and diesel to achieve an efficient use of the power grid by
use of charging devices to optimize energy con- management, via V2G (Vehicle to Grid) technolo- cars; knowing, in real time, the available and required
sumption. These systems can be managed by the gy, regulating in real time the charging and dis- power level at any connected charging station.
user (User Managed Charging, or UMC) or by the charging of the vehicle based on the state of the ▶ synergies that the electrification of vehicles Due to its flexibility, this solution is therefore
supplier (Supplier Managed Charging, or SMC). grid, local power consumption and information of can create between low-carbon electricity able to handle high peaks in power demand. It
In the first case, the owner of the electric vehi- the state of charge of electric vehicles. (including renewable energy sources) and should also be noted that the charging period
cle chooses the time of recharging based on the clean transportation. The electricity needed can be easily chosen or adapted, since most
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