An efficiency improved single-phase PFC converter for electric vehicle charger applications

This paper presents an efficiency improved single-phase power factor correction (PFC) converter with its target application to plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV) charging systems. The proposed PFC converter features sinusoidal input current, three-level output characteristic, and wide range of output DC voltage. Moreover, the involved DC/DC buck conversion stage may only need to convert partial input power rather than full scale of input power, and therefore the system overall efficiency can be much improved. Through proper control of the buck converter, it is also possible to mitigate the double-line frequency ripple power that is inherent in a single-phase AC/DC system. Both simulation and experimental results are presented to show the effectiveness of this converter.