Charging Strategy for Battery Electric Vehicles with a Battery Modular Multilevel Management (BM3) Converter System using a PR controller

Abstract

Modular Multilevel Converters (MMC) with integrated battery packs have been proven to be a viable option for various electric power applications. In novel applications, fully charged battery packs are used to form flexible output voltage waveforms. Nonetheless, the charging of the batteries after the actual usage has previously not been described for MMC based inverters with integrated battery packs. This paper presents an approach of power grid compliant electric vehicle battery charging for Battery Modular Multilevel Management (BM3) converter systems with three-switch modules using a PR controller when directly connected to the AC grid. By using such a system, the conventional battery electric vehicle’s on-board charger and any additional battery balancing circuitry become obsolete. It is demonstrated, that the analyzed approach is able to charge the battery modules with a current total harmonic distortion of less than 5% at any charging power level without the usage of a dedicated grid filter. Furthermore, the power factor angle can be freely adjusted.