{"id":3162,"date":"2016-02-25T08:51:51","date_gmt":"2016-02-25T00:51:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/people.utm.my\/haslinasarkan\/?p=3162"},"modified":"2016-02-25T08:51:51","modified_gmt":"2016-02-25T00:51:51","slug":"electric-vehicle-charger-hits-new-efficiency-level","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/haslinasarkan\/electric-vehicle-charger-hits-new-efficiency-level\/","title":{"rendered":"Electric Vehicle Charger Hits New Efficiency Level"},"content":{"rendered":"

The following article can be obtained\u00a0here.<\/a><\/p>\n

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OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA<\/p><\/div>\n

The charger built by researchers from Kettering University with support from HELLA, an automotive electronics company, and gallium-nitride power switches from GaN Systems. The new charger boasts a conversion efficiency of 97%, around 3% more than similar chargers, even though it works at lower power densities. (Image courtesy of GaN Systems).<\/p>\n

As the falling price of gasoline helps to soften concerns about the impact of greenhouse gas emissions, researchers and semiconductor companies remain focused on advancing\u00a0electric vehicles and the charging infrastructure behind them.\u00a0Recently, the Advanced Power Electronics Lab (APEL) at Kettering University<\/a>\u00a0partnered with HELLA<\/a>, an automotive electronics company, to\u00a0develop\u00a0a compact vehicle charger that makes\u00a0a big\u00a0step forward in efficiency.<\/p>\n

The researchers built what is known as a Level\u00a02 charger, which\u00a0plugs into a wall outlet\u00a0and converts electricity into a form more suitable for electric cars. What sets apart the new charger is an efficiency of 97%,\u00a0more than 3% over the average for these chargers. The charger used power switches based on\u00a0gallium-nitride transistors, wide bandgap semiconductors that\u00a0operate at higher voltages and temperatures than silicon. With these components, supplied by GaN Systems<\/a>, the charger achieved a 2.6 kW per hour power density.<\/p>\n

While Level\u00a02 chargers typically have higher power densities than the new model,\u00a0their efficiency has stalled around 94%. Even though they require special charging equipment, Level 2 chargers add about 10 to 20 miles of range per hour of charging time,\u00a0according to the Alternate Fuels Data Center, the energy department’s storehouse for\u00a0electric vehicle data.<\/p>\n

According to Dr. Kevin Bai, an associate professor of electrical engineering at Kettering University, the key to the charger\u2019s efficiency is a special two-stage design. Unlike traditional three-stage versions, the new design allowed the researchers to make a lighter and more compact charger.\u00a0Bai characterized the advance as a \u201cgame changer\u201d in electric vehicle charging.<\/p>\n

In a three-stage process, the charger converts ac grid voltage into dc voltage, inverts the dc into high-frequency ac, and then rectifying ac to dc again to charge the car\u2019s battery. Bai says each stage of this process results in about a 2% power loss.<\/p>\n

In addition\u00a0to Level\u00a02 chargers, there are also Level\u00a01 chargers that\u00a0add about 2 to 5 miles of range to an electric vehicle per hour of charging time. Also available are dc fast chargers, like the models used by Tesla Motors and Nissan, which can add roughly\u00a050 to 70 miles of range in about 20 minutes, according to the Alternate Fuels Data Center.\u00a0Tesla Superchargers can apparently\u00a0provide 170 miles of range in about a half hour, delivering up to 120 kW of dc power directly to the battery, according to the company’s\u00a0website.<\/p>\n

The research between HELLA and Kettering University began last year, as the automobile industry prepared for\u00a0a new wave of advances in electric vehicles.\u00a0Earlier this year at the 2016 Consumer Electronics Show, automotive companies unveiled new long-range electric vehicles, like the 2017 Chevrolet Bolt, which the company claims can drive more than 200 miles on a single charge.<\/p>\n

While advances in rechargeable batteries and design have made electric vehicles\u00a0more competitive with traditional cars, the charging\u00a0infrastructure has\u00a0been the subject of equally intense research. In 2015, for instance, Bai worked with Derindere Motorlu Araclar (DMA), a Turkish automotive company based in Istanbul that is focused on developing electric vehicles. They developed a prototype three-phase 380-volt, 24 kW charger, a huge step over existing 3.3kW or 6.6kW on-board chargers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The following article can be obtained\u00a0here.   The charger built by researchers from Kettering University with support from HELLA, an automotive electronics company, and gallium-nitride power switches from GaN Systems. The new charger boasts a conversion efficiency of 97%, around 3% more than similar chargers, even though it works at lower power densities. (Image courtesy […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6477,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3162","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-research-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/haslinasarkan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3162","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/haslinasarkan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/haslinasarkan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/haslinasarkan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6477"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/haslinasarkan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3162"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/haslinasarkan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3162\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/haslinasarkan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3162"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/haslinasarkan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3162"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/haslinasarkan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3162"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}