Electric vehicle (EV) charging infrastructure will play a critical role in decarbonization during the next decades, energizing a large share of the transportation sector. This will further increase the enabling role of power electronics converters as an energy transition technology in the widespread adoption of clean energy sources and their efficient use. However, this deep transformation comes with challenges, some of which are already unfolding, such as the slow deployment of charging infrastructure and competing charging standards, and others that will have a long-term impact if not addressed timely, such as the reliability of power converters and power system stability due to loss of system inertia, just to name a few. Nevertheless, the inherent transition toward power systems with higher penetration of power electronics and batteries, together with a layer of communications and information technologies, will also bring opportunities for more flexible and intelligent grid integration and services, which could increase the share of renewable energy in the power grid. This work provides an overview of the existing charging infrastructure ecosystem, covering the different charging technologies for different EV classes, their structure, and configurations, including how they can impact the grid in the future.

This paper presents a new partial power converter (PPC) for the DC-DC stage of electric vehicle (EV) fast charging stations. The proposed converter handles only a fraction of the total power delivered from the grid to the battery, increasing the overall system efficiency and power density, while potentially reducing the cost of the charger. The proposed topology is based on a switched capacitor between the AC terminals of an H-bridge converter, and does not require high frequency isolation transformers to provide a controllable voltage source between the DC-link and the battery. The proposed concept can be implemented using interleaved power cells, which can improve the power quality, reduce inductor size, and enable scalability for higher power rating chargers. The operating principle, partial operation analysis, control scheme, and simulation results are presented to validate the proposed concept.

The technical challenges associated with distributed generation along with the increased adoption of electric vehicles has motivated the development of new configurations for dc microgrids. In this paper, a novel unidirectional multi-port power converter acts as the building block for interfacing different configurations of PV energy conversion systems, allowing it to reach high efficiency for a wide range of input power. Additionally, depending on the connection of the sources, the converter can act as a buck-boost converter or a buck converter, where the former offers wider input voltage range and the latter offers higher efficiency. Additionally, a sum/difference control scheme suitable for both configurations is presented. Simulation results are provided for a 32 kW PV system, establishing a comparison between the two configurations and validating the proposed topology and control scheme.