A Flexible V2V Charger as a New Layer of Vehicle-Grid Integration Framework

This study proposes a flexible and marketable electric vehicle-to-electric vehicle (V2V) charge sharing solution that will lead to faster and wider customer adoption of electric vehicles (EVs) as an alternative to current grid-to-vehicle charging methodologies. The energy transfer between EVs will be through a bidirectional DC-DC converter in a conductive way which can take place at parking lots of workplaces, campuses, or residential premises and highways. The proposed design provides compact infrastructure, wide input and output voltage ranges with bidirectional buck/boost operation, and fast power transfer compared to Level 2 charging stations. To demonstrate this idea, this study evaluated three different bidirectional DC-DC converter topologies and validated the developed prototype with experimental results. We further analyzed V2V energy sharing in terms of impact on new charging station installations and possible grid services that can be provided.