Powering electric vehicles using solar energy

In order to make electric vehicles truly sustainable, it is important to charge them from sustainable sources of electricity like wind and solar. Charging electric vehicles using solar energy has several benefits such as lower cost, reduced impact on the grid and possibility of distributed PV generation close to parking areas. In this talk, we will look at the technologies for powering electric vehicles from both onboard and off-board solar energy. We will also look at the potential of using the EV battery as a storage for solar using vehicle-to-gird technology and how smart charging plays a vital role in the integration of EV and PV in the distribution network.

Biography

Dr.ir. Gautham Ram is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Electrical Sustainable Energy at the Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands. He received his bachelor’s and master’s in Electrical Engineering from the National Institute of Technology Trichy, India in 2011 and the Delft University of Technology in 2013, respectively. He received his PhD from the Delft University in 2018 for the development of a solar powered V2G electric vehicle charger compatible with CHAdeMO, CCS/COMBO and designed smart charging algorithms. From 2017 to 2019, he was a postdoctoral research at TU Delft working on the Flexgrid, Trolley 2.0 and Orchestrating Smart Charging in mass Deployment project. He is currently also the coordinator and a lecturer for the Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) on Electric cars on edX.org with ~90,000 learners from 175 countries. His current research focuses on electric vehicles & charging, PV systems, power electronics and demand-side management.

Dr. Gautham Ram, Department of Electrical Sustainable Energy at the Delft University of Technology

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