Vehicle-to-grid charging control strategy aimed at minimizing harmonic disturbances

Abstract

This paper presents the design and implementation of a control for an electric vehicle charger to provide vehicle to grid (V2G) services while reducing the current total harmonic distortion (THD). The control is composed of two current loops. The main one controls the active and reactive powers in a decoupled way, and the second one, focuses on the reduction of the fifth order harmonic component. After explaining the mathematical modelling, the methodology and the experimental setup, the results of the experimental validation are shown. Several experiments were conducted on a scale-based charger connected to a 400 V grid to observe the performance of the proposed control. Results have shown that the developed control enhances the power quality by reducing the fifth harmonic component by 76.34%, and hence, the current THD from 6.06% to 2.82% and that can successfully provide voltage and frequency regulation without adding extra weight or volume. The proposed strategy can also be extrapolated to other harmonic orders; therefore, it is suitable for grids with high components of certain harmonics.