Investigation of a solar incorporated improved quasi-Y-source DC–DC step-up converter connected with phase-shifted converter in electric vehicle battery charging

In the traditional technique of power conversions used for electric vehicles battery recharging from solar photovoltaic, a boost converter is utilized in the initial stage, continued by a full-bridge converter with a distinct switch design. However, the circuit’s parasites contribute significantly to power losses, which detract from performance. This paper proposes a highly efficient power converter for charging an electric vehicle battery from solar photovoltaic. A high-gain improved quasi-Y-source DC–DC step-up converter operating at a low-duty ratio is implemented at the first stage to offset power losses at various conversion stages. In the next stage, the phase-shifted full-bridge converter incorporates the zero-voltage transition technique to consider circuit parasites and isolate the source and load with an isolation transformer. The extracted system voltage from SPV is 50-V DC, which is boosted to 150 V for charging a battery bank of 60 V, 16 Ah, by a specified power range of 1 kW. An experimental design of 0.5 kW is developed, and its performance is evaluated to illustrate the technical value of the proposed converter. Simulation results show an efficiency of 92.6% with 74 watts loss, while hardware results show an efficiency of 91.8% with 41 watts loss.