The CEA and Renault Group have announced the joint development of a very high-efficiency bidirectional on-board charger, in particular to limit energy losses.
” What if the vehicle became a pillar of the electrical network ? wonder Renault and the CEA. The car manufacturer and the research actor explained on Monday that they are developing a charger that could perform miracles by the end of the decade, by greatly reducing energy losses and recharging the battery even faster. battery of an electric vehicle.
A technology that reduces energy losses and relies on the electricity grid (or feeds it)
This technology that the CEA and Renault Group are developing has a name: V2G, or vehicle-to-grid. Technological bidirectional exchanges, it should allow the vehicles of the French brand, in the near future, to restore part of the electricity stored in the batteries to optimize the operation of the electrical network or downright supply the energy needs of a stand-alone house, provided it is equipped with a two-way meter. Enough to provide a real answer to the intermittent or random nature of renewable energies.
Future generations of these V2G technologies will be deployed by the end of the decade. This is the bet that Renault and the CEA are making, which are jointly developing a new electronic power converter architecture, directly integrated into the vehicle charger.
To develop this architecture, which is the subject of 11 common patents filed, it will have already taken nearly 3 years of research. We are talking here about a real power converter which, remember, is an electronic device placed between the source of electrical energy and the load supplied. The converter then makes it possible to adapt the source to the load and to control the transfer of energy from one to the other.
Innovative materials for better performance
Renault and the CEA affirm it: the converter developed from more compact and innovative materials will reduce energy losses by 30%. The two partners talk about joint R&D work around “Grand Gap” semiconductor materials, such as gallium nitride (GaN) or silicon carbide (SiC). This new architecture has a load capacity of up to 22 kW in three-phase mode.
The charger will also greatly help to improve vehicle charging time and ensure battery durability. And as we said above, it will be bidirectional, since it will also allow the storage of energy from the electrical network. The first results are more than promising, since the new architecture based on Grand Gap components makes it possible to reduce energy losses by 30% during conversion. Same thing during the warm-up, which helps to cool down the conversion system.
” In addition, the work of engineers to optimize active (semiconductors) and passive (capacitors and wound inductive components) components has enabled a reduction in the volume and cost of the charger. “, add the CEA and Renault. The converter has in fact been able to gain in capacity thanks to the skilful use of ferrite materials dedicated to high frequency and to a shaping injection process, “Power Injection Molding”. The consumer could be the final beneficiary of this technology and thus reduce his energy expenditure.
Source: Renault Group and CEA press release
5