Design and Control of a Multiport Bidirectional Converter for Fuel Cell Range Extended Vehicles With Onboard Solar Generation

Although electric vehicles have the benefits of zero tailpipe emissions and convenient overnight charging, other challenges remain, such as limited driving ranges, slow refueling while on the go, lithium supply issues, and emissions from some sources of electricity generation (e.g., coal). Fuel cell (FC) powered vehicles address the refueling time issue, which will also ease range concerns if hydrogen fueling stations are available; furthermore, onboard solar generation can replace a portion of the vehicle‘s grid charging needs and extend driving range. For both options, a smaller battery could be used, meaning less lithium is required. The power electronic architecture for such a solar FC range extended vehicle (S-FCREV) would, however, be complex and costly with conventional separate converters; thus, this article proposes the first practical multiport converter (MPC) that can perform all S-FCREV requirements with a low component count, including partial electrical isolation. This article also proposes a simple Triple PWM and Triple Phase Shift (TPTPS) control scheme to enable flexible power flow between different power sources. A 3.3-kW prototype is designed, built, and tested to validate the topology and control. The experimental results show that the proposed topology achieves 97.8% peak efficiency with the proposed control.