One of the sections of the industry where there is innovation happening is the Electric Vehicles. The focus shift in the recent days is majorly to encourage green vehicles in the market. The Electric vehicles basically are battery powered. When we talk about batteries here, charging is essential. so, EV stations are in demand these days and the charging capability matters. The forecasts are so high that the next generation car sales are expected to be EV dominated. To talk about a figure here, the sales numbers of EV vehicles are expected to be more than 25% of total car sales by 2021. with this rapid growth in the very near future we might see fuel stations dominated by electric chargers. Another study says that EV vehicles are going to reach 50 million count by 2030. Whatever, the existing fuel refilling agents/station owners play a crucial role in building next level of infrastructure.
While this is at very high level, if we go in depth into the specifications, the power level we are talking here is up to 100kW and the current level go beyond 100A. What a basic electrical level designer understands is that the AC sockets deliver power to input of charging stations which over a number of stages of conversion gets converted to a DC to charge the battery.
Design Decisions for a EV charger module:
1. Switching frequency of the IGBT/MOSFET used in the application
2. Charge Current and Voltage at the output of the EV charger
3. charge transfer mechanism
4. Target Efficiency
5. Thermal requirements
6. EMI/EMC considerations
7. Charging time control
One of the major disadvantages we see here with the EV stations and EV technology are:
1. Lack of standards and as the EV market evolves over a period of time, the standards might come into picture.
2. Energy conversion efficiency, whether we are talking about charging batteries or energy transfer from AC sockets to charger stations is very crucial.
3. As battery technology has not improved over the last few years, leakages, battery sizes and finally the decomposition of the batteries is a big challenge.
4. High power, low loss semiconductors are key to achieving the required efficiency. The higher switching losses, faster switching required are some of the challenges that face manufacturers of IGBT, MOSFET.
5. Safety while charging at higher capacities
While designers are going through a phase of making the electrical chargers more efficient and affordable, the consumers who are the vehicle owners looking forward to a affordable, easy to use, long life solutions. Two players shall be seen in this marker over a period of time, firms who design electrically the basic level circuits and firms who buy off-the-shelf modules and integrate a electric charger. ST Microelectronics ACEPACK module is one example where ready made module can be used for integration. ACEPACK is a 6-IGBT module which helps in inversion. The ACEPACK features either 650V or 1200V IGBTs and support current ratings from 15A to 75A. The IGBTs we are talking here and their levels of integration are very crucial to bring down the EV chargers costing.
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