Auxiliary Resonant Commutated Pole Inverter (ARCPI) with SiC MOSFETs for efficient Vehicle-to-Grid (V2G) charging

The need for energy storages is growing with an increasing share of renewable energy sources in the electricity grid. The roll-out of electric vehicles into the mass market will bring huge battery storage capacities into the grid, which have remained largely unused so far but could be used to temporarily store energy. One key enabler for this is low-cost, efficient and compact power electronics, like the Auxiliary Resonant Commutated Pole Inverter (ARCPI), which is a promising topology for bidirectional AC/DC converters in battery chargers. In this paper, we present the principle of operation and a simulation of the ARCPI. In addition, we provide first results from an ARCPI prototype using SiC MOSFETs designed for a power of up 22 kW, DC link voltages of up to 920 V and peak efficiencies beyond 99 %.