Comparison of the effects of single phase active rectifiers used in electric vehicle chargers on the grid

Increasing environmental pollution problems have required the use of clean energy in the transportation sector, and in this way, electric vehicles have been an important subject of study in recent years. One of the most critical working areas in electric vehicle technology is the design and charging processes of batteries where electrical energy is stored. The charging process of an electric vehicle battery such as any e-bike, e-scooter, electric handicapped vehicle or electric car should be carried out as soon as possible and in the healthiest way. However, the battery charging module, which includes various power converters, acts as a nonlinear load during the charging process and creates some disruptive effects on the grid. At the beginning of these disturbance effects are low power factor and high harmonic distortions in the mains current. These disruptive effects caused by the power converter circuits are solved by the changes made on the power converter circuits. Using rectifier circuits with active PFC (Power Factor Correction) is one of these solutions. In this study, the problems caused by electric vehicle batteries on the grid side to which they are connected during the charging process are mentioned. Single-phase active power factor corrected rectifier structures are introduced for the rectification phase of the charging process, which consists of two stages: rectification and regulation of the voltage received from the grid. Classic Boost PFC, Interleaved Boost PFC, Bridgeless PFC active rectifier circuits are simulated in PSIM program with 220 V active mains voltage, 1kW output power, 400 V output voltage. These three converters are compared with each other in terms of power factor, input current harmonic content and efficiency. All three converters gave near-ideal results in terms of power factor. The highest power factor value and the lowest harmonic content were obtained with the Interleaved Boost PFC circuit. As expected, the most efficient converter was the Bridgeless PFC circuit, which increased the efficiency by about 1% compared to other converters. In the light of these results, it has been seen that the choice of circuit topology should be determined according to the power level to be studied, considering the cost and control difficulty issues.