Functional Safety and Electric Vehicle Charging: Requirements Analysis and Design for a Safe Charging Infrastructure System

As society moves from fossil fuels towards electric mobility, there’s an increasing need for charging infrastructure for electric vehicles. Aside from a network of public charging stations, charging equipment will also be increasingly installed in homes and used on a daily basis to charge electric vehicles (EVs) overnight. With this increasing role of charging infrastructure in day-to-day life, safety and security should be guaranteed for these systems. In this work we present the requirements analysis and a charging infrastructure system design for both private and public charging stations, with the goal of fulfilling the requirements of current functional safety and EV supply equipment (EVSE) standardization. Risk assessment for the charging process and the derived functional safety requirements are presented. The overall system design is discussed, with the main focus on the safety-related parts. The presented work can be used as a basis for the development of functionally safe nex t generation EVSE.