Energy and Power Engineering, 2013, 5, 1372-1376

doi:10.4236/epe.2013.54B260 Published Online July 2013 (http://www.scirp.org/journal/epe)

Research on the Model of Electric Vehicle Charging Device

Based on PSCAD
Run-rong Fan, Tian-yuan Tan, Yun-peng Gao, Hui Chang
School of Electrical Engineering, Wuhan University, Wuhan, China
Email: rrfran0426@whu.edu.cn, tty@whu.edu.cn, ypgao@whu.edu.cn, hui_chang@foxmail.com
Received May, 2013

ABSTRACT
As the energy and environment issues are becoming increasingly prominent, electric vehicles have become the main
new energy vehicles of future development because of their advantage of environmental protection, clean and energy
conservation. Electric vehicle charging station is a very important part of electric vehicle facilities, the development and
popularization of electric vehicles can't do with the construction of the charging station. The chargers in charging stations are nonlinear equipment, and they will produce harmonic pollution, so it's of practical significance to do a research
on the chargers and their harmonic problems. By using power system simulation software PSCAD as the simulation and
analysis tool, this thesis focuses on electric vehicle charging device modeling and harmonic problem research.
Keywords: Electric Vehicles; Modeling; Harmonic Analysis; PSCAD Simulation

1. Introduction
The car makes a great contribution to the advance of
human civilization [1]. It makes human life more convenient and comfortable, but at the same it also brings to
the society inevitable consequences such as the waste of
resources and serious environmental pollution [2, 3]. In
order to reduce its dependence on traditional energy
sources and to protect the natural environment for human
survival, doing researches on new energy has become a
worldwide subject [4, 5]. As a representative of the new
energy vehicles, electric vehicles have obvious advantage
of environmentally-friendly, energy-saving and so on
compared to traditional gasoline cars [6].
The electric vehicle charging system is the basic supporting systems of electric vehicles. [7]The charging
devices research is of great significance to the promotion and application of the electric car, and to its turning
to industrial production.
This paper is based on the program of electric vehicle
charging device. Six pulse wave uncontrolled rectification charger circuit was built in PSCAD so that it can
charge a storage battery. And it also calculated the
Nth-degree harmonics current and the distortion rate of
total current harmonic. It also analyzed the harmonics of
the car charging model. And compared it with the theoretical value, which proved correctness of the analysis. In
the end, it gives the prospects of the researches that need
to be done in this field.

Copyright 2013 SciRes.

2. The Design of Electric Vehicles Charging

Device
The charging device system of electric vehicles is actually a DC power supply. To design such a power supply,
the charging models, the methods of charging and many
other factors should to be considered.

2.1. The Charging Model and Charging Method

of the Electric Vehicle
As for the electric vehicle charging programs, there are
three choices: models of conventional charging, fast
charging and mechanical charging [8]. The three charging modes have their own characteristics and scope of
application. Ac-cording to the characteristics and control
of the operational characteristics of the conventional pure
electric vehicles and the use of conventional battery
management strategy, usually conventional charging and
supplementary charging are taken. The supplementary
charging is still in the form of the conventional charging,
but the charging time is the hospitality gap. It can be replaced by the battery charging if necessary.
There are mainly three conventional charging methods
of the electric cars: constant current charging method,
constant voltage charging method and stage charging
method [9]. Of the three methods,, stage charging method can avoid large charging current at the beginning
phase of the constant voltage charging, it can also avoid
the phenomenon of overcharge at the later phase of the
constant current charging. Stage charging method is used

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on the power battery of the chargers charging methods

and charging control strategy. So this paper takes stage
charging method to charge electric vehicles.

1 [mH]
T

Figure 1. Block diagram of the charger.

Copyright 2013 SciRes.

Io

C RLC

C 10.0 [kV]

#1

#2

U1

0.001 [H]
#2
#1

Uo

1 .0 [o h m ]

The main circuit diagram of electric vehicle charging

device build in PSCAD is shown in Figure 2. This paper
mainly analyzes the chargers output voltage and current.
For more convenient analysis, a simple resistive load is
given.
In order to simulate the charging system as real as
possible, we set the sys-tem input 10kv, and transformed
to 380V after /Y transformer to supply power for the
charging system. The charging system rectifier links use
three-phase controlled rectifier diode, the three-phase
380V AC voltage becomes 514V DC voltage through a
three-phase rectifier bridge rectifier and capacitor filter ,and turn to high-frequency pulse voltage after Hbridge inverter, then we get the required adjustable DC
voltage and adjustable DC current after high-frequency
rectifier and filter.

G2

2 0 0 0 .0 [u F ]

3.1. The Design of the Charging Device Circuit

1.0 [MVA]

B RLC

G1

#3

380 [V]
T

According to the requirements of the electric vehicle

battery charging and the design requirements of the
charging device, in this paper we build a charging device
circuit in PSCAD, set the parameters of each device in
the circuit and then run the circuit, we obtained a portion
of the output voltage and current waveforms of the power
supply.

3. The Modeling of the Charger and its Simulation Analysis

RLC A
V

2 0 0 0 .0 [u F ]

The charging device system of electric vehicles is actually a DC power supply. And the design of the charging
system is in fact the design of a power supply. But the
power supply must be controlled by a certain algorithm
so that the output voltage and current are in line with the
curve of battery charging. The charging power supplies
that commonly used in industrial applications are the
following three types: linear power, SCR power supply
and switching power supply [10]. According to the
working principle and method of the switching power
supply, the block diagram of the charger designed in this
paper is shown in Figure 1.

T
T

2.2. The Overall Design of the Electric Vehicles

Charging Device

T
T

G2

G1

Figure 2 The main circuit of the electric vehicle charging

device.

G1

G2

Ua

Ua

Ia

Ia

U1

U1

Uo

Uo

Io

Io

G1

G2

Figure 3. Drive control circuit and waveform analysis circuit.

The drive control circuit and the waveform analysis

circuit shown in Figure 3.

3.2. Simulation Analysis of the Charging Device

The waveforms of the output voltage and current can be
obtained through the simulation of the entire charging
device circuit, waveform diagram shown in Figure 4 (a)
and the unit is V. waveform diagram shown in Figure 4
(b) and the unit is A.
As can be seen from the output voltage and current
waveform, the charger model designed in this paper can
get a better DC power supply.

4. The Harmonic Analysis of Electric Vehicle

Charging Device Connected to the Grid
High power charger in charging stations is a kind of
highly non-linear electrical equipment. Sinusoidal voltage puts pressure on non-linear loads, the fundamental
current will be distorted and harmonic will be generated.
Especially in large charging stations, a large number of
charger works at the same time, harmonic currents generated will have great impact on power grid and other
electrical equipments. Therefore, in the construction of
charging stations, we need to consider the harmonic
problems.
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4.1. The Design of the Equivalent Model of the

Chargers Harmonic Analysis
The working principle of the charging machine is the
input three-phase AC current rectified by rectifying circuit, after the filter circuit, providing the DC input for
high frequency DC-DC power conversion circuit, the
output of the power conversion circuit after the output
filter circuit to charge rechargeable battery of vehicles,
charger block diagram shown in Figure 5.
At present, as for the charging method and charging
control strategy of the charging machines battery, we
usually adopt a typical two-stage method. The first half is
the constant current but with limited pressure, the latter
half is the constant pressure but with limited current.
Usually the conventional charging time of charging
machine is 4-6 hours. In this process, the output voltage
and current is changeable, but in the charging time of a
micro-element, we think the output current and the output voltage of the charging machine is constant, i.e.in a

micro element we can use a non-resistor R to approximate the input impedance of the high frequency power
conversion circuits, therefore we can use a nonlinear resistance R in the entire process of charging to the equivalent in place of the high-frequency power transform
circuit, the value of R calculated as:

U1 U12 U12 U12

(1)
I1
P1
Po
Uo Io
In the formula,
U1 the input voltage of the high frequency power
conversion circuit;
I1 the input current of the high-frequency power
conversion circuit;
U o the output voltage of the high-frequency power
conversion circuit;
I o the output current of the high-frequency power
conversion circuit;
Po the output power of the high-frequency power
conversion circuit;
The efficiency of power conversion modules.
The power conversion efficiency of the module is
generally more than 95%. In order to analysis the harmonic, will be set as 95% directly. We use nonlinear
resistor R Instead of the charger power conversion unit
we can get the approximate equivalent model. According
to recorded data of the batterys charging process, using
the curve fitting method, we can get the output power of
the charging machine:
R

0.79 Pomax t 0.048 , 0 t 150

P
t

o
0.021 (t-150)
,150 t 270
Po max e
(a)

For example, the power of charger is 9kw, parameters

of the charger machine as follows, U omax = 75V, I omax
= 120A, Pomax U omax I omax = 9kW, the charging time
t = 270 min.
For the 6-pulse uncontrolled rectifier bridge, output on
the DC-side U B = 2.34, U 2 = 514.8V. Making use of
the relationship between R and the output power curve of
the charging machine, we can obtain:
R

(b)
Figure 4 (a) Uo waveform graph; (b) I0 waveform graph.
I

Figure 5. Block diagram of the charger.

Copyright 2013 SciRes.

(2)

U B2

(3)
Po
In formula (3), is the charging machines efficiency, U B is DC voltage of the rectifier bridge, P
o t
substituted into the above equation, we can get a formula
about the equivalent impedance of the high frequency
power converter.
The calculated R is a continuously changing non-linear
curve. the R-value change small before 150 minutes,
Structures approximate R model in PSCAD shown in
Figure 6, Among A = 1.1988, B = 0.021.
The value of R changing with time is shown in Figure
7.
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4.2. Harmonic Simulation Analysis

First, we should make three-phase uncontrolled rectifier
bridge; rectifier DC side filters inductor and capacitor in
PSCAD / EMTDC. Meanwhile, in order to analyze the
harmonic, we should also establish a non-controlled rectifier bridge consisting of charging machine simulation
topology; the circuit is shown in Figure 8.
The control loop circuit and waveform display loop
circuit is shown in Figure 9.
Simulation analysis of the circuit to obtain voltage of
the high-voltage input terminal and waveform of the
current. The waveform shown in Figure 10(a) and the
unit is Kv. The waveform shown in Figure 10(b) and the
unit is A.
TIME

Max

Ae

TIME
150

Max

Ae

Bx

Ua

Ua

Ia

Ia

Figure 9. Control loop circuit and waveform display loop

circuit.

Bx

150

(a)

R
Figure 6. Model diagram of R.

(b)

Figure 10. (a) Ua waveform graphs; (b) Ia waveform graphs.

Figure 7. R change with time when charging process.

A
V

B RLC

C RLC

C 10.0 [kV]

#1

1.0 [MVA]
#2

RLC

2 0 0 0 .0 [u F ]

1 [mH]
T

C
380 [V]

Figure 8. Main circuit of charging simulation topology diagram.

Copyright 2013 SciRes.

As can be seen from Figure 10, the input terminal

voltage and current generated distortion, In order to get a
further analysis of the nature of the harmonic, we should
analyze its Fourier. The harmonic analysis of the circuit
is shown in Figure 11.
With the analysis of the circuit simulation, we can get
the current total distortion waveform as is shown in Figure 12; the amplitude of the current total distortion is
6.7%.
The percentage of the each output harmonic wave is
shown in Figure 13.
With the simulation waveforms and the ratio chart, we
can get the higher quality harmonic: (k = 1, 2, 3 ...) harmonic, and as for the higher harmonic content, the higher
the harmonic frequency, the smaller the amplitude. We
can also conduct harmonic suppression with the installation of filtering devices and reactive power compensation
device.
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FFT

Mag
(31)
Ph
(31)

Ia
F = 50.0 [Hz]

31

Total
Harmonic
THDi
Distortion
31
Individual
THDn

dc

Figure 11. Harmonic analysis circuit.

searched its charging method. According to the different

waveform of the power supply to charge the battery, we
can use the battery charging model to charge the battery
using the DC current source first and then using the DC
voltage source.
This article analyzed the harmonic generation and impact in theory. It substituted the equivalent input impedance of the charging machine of high frequency DC-DC
power conversion circuit with a nonlinear resistor and
built the model of charging device, and then proceeded to
the harmonic simulation analysis. Compared the harmonic simulation results with the theoretical analysis of
the value, we can see the 5th,7th,11th,13th,17th,19th and
other harmonic (all odd harmonics) content is higher, and
for higher levels of harmonics, the higher the number, the
smaller the harmonic amplitude. So the result is consistent with the theoretical analysis.

REFERENCES
Figure 12. Current total harmonic distortion waveform
graphs.

[1]

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[3]

H. P. Xu, X. H. Wen and K. Li, DSP-Based Digitally

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5. Conclusions

[6]

Y. Wang, Research to the charge system and its controller for electric vehicles,] North China Electric Power.

The use of electric vehicles charging problems must be

first considered, while the development and popularization of electric vehicles cannot be separated from the
construction of charging stations. In the charging stations,
charging device will produce harmonics and inject harmonics into the grid. Therefore, before the construction
and functioning of the charging stations, we must study
and solve the electric vehicles charging and harmonic
problems.
This paper used appropriate procedures and established a simulation model to simulate the charging device
and then analyzed the harmonic impact which is proved
effective. This paper built a battery model, and re-

[7]

P. S. Moses, S. Deilami, A. S. Masoum, et al., Power

Quality of Smart Grids with Plug-in Electric Vehicles
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[8]

N. Li, Harmonic Study of Different Types of Electric

Vehicle Chargers, Beijing Jiao tong University,2010.

[9]

Y. F. Huang, Modeling and Harmonic Study of Electric

Vehicle Chargers, Beijing Jiao tong University.

Figure 13. Each output harmonic wave proportion.

Copyright 2013 SciRes.

[10] Y. X. Lu, G. X. M. Zhan and X. W. Pu, Harmonic Study

of Electric Vehicle Chargers, Proceedings of the
CSU-EPSA, Vol. 18, No. 3, 2006, pp. 52-54.

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