Real-Time Operation and Protection for AC Vehicle to Home (V2H) System Using Smart Circuit Breakers

This paper presents a novel approach for demonstrating AC vehicle-to-home (V2H) with bidirectionalcapable electric vehicles (EV) acting as a battery backup to support critical home loads during power outages. The concept leverages residential smart breaker technology capable of monitoring, protection, and control within the home load panel and in the electric vehicle supply equipment (EVSE). A V2H home controller was developed to island/reconnect the home from/to the grid and to switch off non-critical loads. A bidirectional-capable EVSE and smart load panel with V2H controller and communications, were designed, built, and tested in a laboratory environment. Communication between the EVSE and EV for bidirectional power flow was successfully achieved using the standard PLC link within the J1772 plug, eliminating the need for any additional proprietary communication lines. In addition, a neutral forming capability was designed and integrated into the smart load panel. This feature forms a split-phase system to support both 240V and 120V home loads from the 240Vac 2-wire output from the EV. The proposed hardware and software configuration demonstrated fast and reliable detection of power outages, safe home islanding and reconnection, and efficient management for V2H operations.