Implementation of fuel cell and photovoltaic panels based DC micro grid prototype for electric vehicles charging station

Abstract

Today, electric vehicle (EV) appears as an evident solution for the future automotive market. The introduction of EV will lead to the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions and decrease the travelling cost. However, electric vehicle is truly an ecological solution only if the production of electricity necessary for its operation is produced from sustainable energy sources. In this paper, an Electric Vehicle Charging Station (EVCS) through sustainable energy sources via a DC micro-grid system has been proposed. The proposed system includes a fuel cell (FC), photovoltaic (PV) panels, storage battery and possibility of a connection to the grid. In this work a low power prototype of a micro-grid based EVCS has been first validated using a numerical simulation under Matlab/Simulink using variable irradiance and number of recharging vehicles. In the second part of this paper, an EVCS prototype has been realized in the laboratory. The tests are realized using an emulator of the PEM fuel cell with the concept of the hardware-in-the-loop (HIL). The objective of this emulation is to evaluate the performances of the whole system without the need for a real fuel cell. The whole system is implemented on the dSPACE 1103 platform and the results of the tests are discussed.