Software-defined electric vehicle chargers enabling more connective and flexible micro-grids

Electric vehicle (EV) is the key enabler of transportation electrification to achieve the target of net zero emission. With the popularization of EVs and the corresponding charging infrastructure, the batteries have become a type of essential energy storage component to be integrated with the grid utility. For the purpose of improving the robustness and power quality of the grid, EV can provide the grid services via vehicle-to-grid (V2G) operations. This paper demonstrated a software-defined concept for the EV charger V2G applications by designing the reconfigurable power modules with optimal control algorithms. With the software-defined EV chargers, the effective and efficient grid service demands can be achieved with grid support for the power quality and robustness improvement. The experimental results showed the feasibility of the demonstrated design.