Novel Fuzzy Controller for a Standalone Electric Vehicle Charging Station Supplied by Photovoltaic Energy

Abstract

The electric vehicle (EV) is one of the most important and common parts of modern life. Recently, EVs have undergone a big development thanks to the advantages of high efficiency, negligible pollution, low maintenance, and low noise. Charging stations are very important and mandatory services for electric vehicles. Nevertheless, they cause high stress on the electric utility grid. Therefore, renewable energy-sourced charging stations have been introduced. They improve the environmental issues of the electric vehicles and support remote area operation. This paper proposes the application of fuzzy control to an isolated charging station supplied by photovoltaic power. The system is modeled and simulated using Matlab/Simulink. The simulation results indicate that the disturbances in the solar insolation do not affect the electric vehicle charging process at all. Moreover, the controller perfectly manages the stored energy to compensate for the solar energy variations. Additionally, the system response with the fuzzy controller is compared to that with the PI controller. The comparison shows that the fuzzy controller provides an improved response.