Implementation of onboard charger designs used in electric vehicles in a simulated envi̇ronment

As electric vehicles become widespread, their negative effects on the grid are also increasing. Low power factor and high harmonic currents deteriorate grid power quality and reduce efficiency. Power factor correction methods are used in chargers designed to increase efficiency and improve power quality. When power factor corrected chargers are examined, two different designs are seen, single-stage and two-stage. In single-stage chargers, energy is directly converted to the desired voltage level. Although this method has advantages such as ease of application and low cost, it only works efficiently at low powers. For powers over 1 kW, two-stage topologies are generally preferred. In two-stage booster type converters, the energy drawn from the grid is first increased to the desired voltage level with AC/DC converters. At this stage, grid power quality is protected with power factor correction methods. In the second stage, it is reduced to the desired battery voltage level with DC/DC converters. In this study, two-stage booster type AC/DC converters are examined. Computer simulations of commonly used classical, interleaved, base bridgeless, full wave controlled and interleaved totem pole converters were performed. Simulation results were compared with each other in terms of efficiency and total harmonic distortion values.