Patent Application
20240300345
The present disclosure mainly relates to the field of charging technologies, and more specifically, to a power allocation device and a charging system including the power allocation device.
In a charging system such as a vehicle charging station, a power conversion device converts power of a public power grid into required power, and a charging terminal outputs the power to a charging object such as an electric vehicle. When a plurality of charging terminals and/or a plurality of power converters are disposed, a power allocation device may be used to distribute the power. For example, in the vehicle charging station, the power allocation device may distribute power of a power converter to a target charging terminal in the plurality of charging terminals by using a switch, to charge a vehicle connected to the target charging terminal.
Because different charging objects or different charging vehicles have different charging requirements, the power allocation device usually needs to ensure that a single power converter is not simultaneously connected to a plurality of different vehicles or a plurality of charging terminals. In addition, the power allocation device further needs to ensure that each power converter can switch to as many charging ports as possible, to improve utilization of the power converter and reliability of the charging system. Therefore, a large quantity of switches are usually disposed in the power allocation device to distribute the required power, resulting in high costs and low efficiency of the power allocation device.
To resolve the foregoing problem, embodiments of the present disclosure provide a power allocation device and a charging system including the power allocation device.
According to a first aspect of the present disclosure, a power allocation device is provided. The power allocation device includes: a first switch assembly, including at least one intermediate output terminal, where the first switch assembly is configured to output power selectively by using one of the at least one intermediate output terminal, and the first switch assembly includes at least one of an arc extinguishing switch or a solid-state switch; and a second switch assembly, including at least one sub-switch respectively corresponding to the at least one intermediate output terminal, where each sub-switch includes a plurality of power output terminals, and the second switch assembly is configured to output the power from the intermediate output terminal selectively by using one power output terminal of one of the at least one sub-switch.
In embodiments of the present disclosure, a two-level allocation architecture is used, and a first-level switch assembly provides an electric-arc extinguishing function. Therefore, a quantity of arc extinguishing switches required in the power allocation device is reduced, and system costs are reduced. In addition, in the power allocation device, a large quantity of switches may be saved, thereby reducing costs, improving switch utilization, and making control simpler and more reliable.
In some embodiments of the present disclosure, the at least one sub-switch includes a non-arc-extinguishing multi-contact switch. In this implementation, a low-cost switch may be used in the second switch assembly, thereby reducing system costs.
In some embodiments of the present disclosure, the first switch assembly includes a power input terminal, the at least one intermediate output terminal includes a plurality of intermediate output terminals, and the first switch assembly is further configured to perform a switching operation between the plurality of intermediate output terminals of the first switch assembly, to electrically connect the power input terminal to one of the plurality of intermediate output terminals of the first switch assembly. In this implementation, the first switch assembly may have the plurality of intermediate output terminals. In addition to electric-arc extinguishing, the first switch assembly may further select a first-level channel in the power allocation device. This helps reduce switches required by the power allocation device.
In some embodiments of the present disclosure, the second switch assembly is configured to perform a switching operation between the plurality of power output terminals of each sub-switch, to electrically connect each intermediate output terminal of the first switch assembly to one power output terminal of a corresponding sub-switch. In this implementation, the second switch assembly may select a second-level channel in the power allocation device. Therefore, power of a power converter is simply and reliably transmitted to a target charging terminal.
In some embodiments of the present disclosure, the at least one sub-switch is configured to perform the switching operation in an associated manner. In this implementation, control of the second switch assembly may be simplified.
In some embodiments of the present disclosure, each of the at least one sub-switch includes a same quantity of power output terminals. In this implementation, control of the second switch assembly may be further simplified.
According to a second aspect of the present disclosure, a charging system is provided, including a power supply device. The power allocation device according to the first aspect is powered by the power supply device.
In some embodiments of the present disclosure, the power supply device further includes at least one power converter. The at least one power converter respectively corresponds to at least one power allocation device, and each power converter is coupled to a corresponding power allocation device.
In some embodiments of the present disclosure, the charging system further includes a plurality of charging terminals that are respectively coupled to each power output terminal of at least one sub-switch of each power allocation device.
It may be understood that the charging system provided in the second aspect includes the power allocation device according to the first aspect. Therefore, explanations or descriptions of the first aspect are also applicable to the second aspect. In addition, for beneficial effects that can be achieved in the second aspect, refer to the beneficial effects of the first aspect. Details are not described herein again.
It is clearer and easier to understand the foregoing and other aspects of the present invention in descriptions of the following (plurality of) embodiments.
The foregoing and other features, advantages, and aspects of embodiments of the present disclosure become more obvious with reference to the accompanying drawings and with reference to the following detailed descriptions. In the accompanying drawings, same or similar reference numerals represent same or similar elements.
The following describes embodiments of the present disclosure in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings. Although some embodiments of the present disclosure are shown in the accompanying drawings, it should be understood that the present disclosure may be implemented in various forms, and should not be construed as being limited to the embodiments described herein. On the contrary, these embodiments are provided so that the present disclosure will be thoroughly and completely understood. It should be understood that the accompanying drawings and embodiments of the present disclosure are only used as examples, but are not intended to limit the protection scope of the present disclosure.
In descriptions of embodiments of the present disclosure, the term “include” and similar terms thereof should be understood as open inclusion, that is, “include but are not limited to”. The term “based on” should be understood as “at least partially based on”. The terms “one embodiment” or “the embodiment” should be understood as “at least one embodiment”. The terms “first”, “second”, and the like may indicate different or same objects. Other explicit and implicit definitions may also be included below.
As described above, during power allocation, a power allocation device usually needs to meet some requirements, for example, to avoid that each power converter simultaneously outputs power to a plurality of charging terminals and to enable each power converter to switch to as many charging ports as possible. For this purpose, a switch is usually disposed between each power converter and each charging terminal so that each power converter can be connected to any charging terminal or disconnected from any charging terminal. Therefore, a switch array is formed in the power allocation device. It may be learned that in this conventional switch array, a quantity of switches needs to be at least a product of a quantity of power converters and a quantity of charging terminals, and all switches need to have an arc extinguishing capability, so as to completely cut off an electrical connection between a power converter and a charging terminal, thereby ensuring charging safety. For example, when a charging system includes eight power converters and eight charging terminals, the power allocation device needs to provide at least 64 switches with the arc extinguishing capability. Obviously, the quantity of switches in the switch array or in a switch matrix is too large, control is complex, and costs are high. In addition, utilization of the switches in the switch array is very low.
Embodiments of the present disclosure provide an improved power allocation solution. In the improved solution, a two-level power allocation architecture is used. A first-level switch assembly is configured to connect a power converter to a charging channel associated with a target charging terminal or disconnect the power converter from the charging channel associated with the target charging terminal, and a second-level switch assembly is configured to select the target charging terminal from a plurality of charging terminals and switch the charging channel to the target charging terminal. In this manner, only the first-level switch assembly needs to have an electric-arc extinguishing capability. Therefore, only an arc extinguishing switch or a solid-state switch needs to be disposed on a power output path of each power converter, and all the switches do not need to have the electric-arc extinguishing capability, which greatly reduces system costs. In addition, the use of two levels of switch assemblies reduces a large quantity of switches, and the reduction in the quantity of switches not only reduces costs but also makes control of the power allocation device simpler and more reliable.
The charging system 1000 may further include a plurality of charging terminals 300-1, . . . and 300-8. The power allocation device 100 may be coupled to the plurality of charging terminals 300-1, . . . , and 300-8, and transmit the power from the power converter 200 to a target charging terminal in the plurality of charging terminals 300-1, . . . , and 300-8. It may be understood that a quantity of charging terminals is not limited to the quantity of charging terminals shown in
According to this embodiment of the present disclosure, the power allocation device 100 may include a first switch assembly 140. The first switch assembly 140 includes at least one intermediate output terminal 141-1, . . . , and 141-4. The first switch assembly 140 is configured to output power selectively by using one of the at least one intermediate output terminal 141-1, . . . , and 141-4, and the first switch assembly 140 includes at least one of an arc extinguishing switch or a solid-state switch. As an example, the first switch assembly 140 may be used as a first-level switch of the power allocation device 100, and can extinguish an electric arc when a disconnection operation is performed, so as to avoid damage caused by the electric arc to the device and avoid a failure of the disconnection operation. For example, the first switch assembly 140 may be a multi-channel switch including an arc extinguishing apparatus. However, the first switch assembly 140 may also be constructed by using a contactor, a circuit breaker, or another electrical switch that can perform an electric-arc extinguishing operation. In addition, the first switch assembly 140 may alternatively be a solid-state switch. The solid-state switch can avoid generating the electric arc when the disconnection operation of a main circuit is performed, thereby also implementing an electric-arc extinguishing function. The solid-state switch includes but is not limited to a power switch device, such as an insulated gate bipolar transistor (IGBT), a junction-gate field-effect transistor (FET), a bipolar junction transistor (BJT), a metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistor (MOSFET), a gate turn-off thyristor (GTO), a MOS-controlled thyristor (MCT), an integrated gate-commutated thyristor (IGCT), a silicon carbide (SiC) switch device, or a gallium nitride (GaN) switch device. It should be noted that, although the first switch assembly 140 is shown in a form of a multi-channel switch in
In some embodiments, the first switch assembly 140 includes a power input terminal 142, and the at least one intermediate output terminal 141-1, . . . , and 141-4 includes a plurality of intermediate output terminals. For example, there are four intermediate output terminals 141-1, 141-2, 141-3, and 141-4 shown in
According to this embodiment of the present disclosure, the power allocation device 100 further includes a second switch assembly 150. The second switch assembly 150 includes at least one sub-switch 150-1, . . . , and 150-4 respectively corresponding to the at least one intermediate output terminal 141-1, . . . , and 141-4. Each sub-switch includes a plurality of power output terminals 151-1 and 151-2, and the second switch assembly 150 is configured to output the power from the intermediate output terminal selectively by using one power output terminal of one of the at least one sub-switch 150-1, . . . , and 150-4. As an example, the second switch assembly 150 may be used as a second-level switch in the power allocation device 100, to transmit the power to the target charging terminal. A sub-switch corresponding to an intermediate output terminal of the first switch assembly is disposed in the second switch assembly 150, each sub-switch may include a plurality of power output terminals, and a power output terminal of each sub-switch is respectively connected to a corresponding charging terminal. For example, as shown in
In some embodiments, when the first switch assembly 140 has only one intermediate output terminal, only one sub-switch may be correspondingly disposed in the second switch assembly 150, and the sub-switch has a plurality of power output terminals respectively corresponding to all charging terminals. For example, when there are eight charging terminals, the sub-switch may have eight power output terminals. In this case, the first switch assembly 140 is used to extinguish the electric arc during the disconnection operation instead of selecting a charging channel, and only the second switch assembly 150 is used to select the charging channel. When the first switch assembly 140 has the plurality of intermediate output terminals, the plurality of corresponding sub-switches are disposed in the second switch assembly 150. In this case, in addition to electric-arc extinguishing, the first switch assembly 140 may further switch a plurality of charging channels, that is, select the first-level channel, and select the second-level channel in the second switch assembly 150.
In some embodiments, the second switch assembly 150 is configured to perform the switching operation between the plurality of power output terminals 151-1 and 151-2 of each sub-switch, to electrically connect each intermediate output terminal of the first switch assembly 140 to one power output terminal of a corresponding sub-switch. As an example, the second switch assembly 150 may implement the switching operation in an electrical control manner, or the operation may be performed in a manual manner. For example, when a charging port of the charging vehicle is connected to the charging terminal 300-3, based on a signal triggered by a connection or based on an instruction entered by a charging operator, the controller of the charging system 1000 controls the first switch assembly 140 to connect the power input terminal 142 to the intermediate output terminal 141-2, and further controls the second switch assembly 150 to connect to the second sub-switch 150-2 corresponding to the intermediate output terminal 141-2, so as to connect the intermediate output terminal 141-2 to an expected power output terminal. The power output terminal is a power output terminal connected to the charging terminal 300-3. Based on the foregoing operations, the power of the power converter 200 is output by using the power input terminal 142 and the intermediate output terminal 141-2 of the first switch assembly 140 and by using the second sub-switch 150-2, to a vehicle that is charged at the charging terminal 300-3. In addition, the operator may also manually control the switching operation of the second switch assembly 150. It may be understood that, similar to the first switch assembly 140, an implementation in which the second switch assembly 150 performs the switching operation is not limited thereto, and may be any other manner in which switch control is implemented. For example, the switching operation may be implemented in a remote control manner or may be implemented in a combination of a plurality of manners.
In some embodiments, the at least one sub-switch 150-1, . . . , and 150-4 in the second switch assembly 150 includes a non-arc-extinguishing multi-contact switch. Because the first switch assembly 140 undertakes an electric-arc extinguishing function during the disconnection operation, an electric-arc problem does not need to be considered for the at least one sub-switch 150-1, . . . , and 150-4. It may be learned that, by using the two-level architecture, only the first-level switch assembly may execute the arc extinguishing task. In addition, another switch may use a low-cost non-arc-extinguishing multi-contact switch because there is no electric-arc problem. For example, in the power allocation device 100, the sub-switches 150-1, . . . , and 150-4 may be selected as non-arc-extinguishing dual-contact switches, which can reduce costs of the power allocation device.
In some embodiments, the at least one sub-switch 150-1, . . . , and 150-4 is configured to perform the switching operation in an associated manner. For example, the sub-switches 150-1, 150-2, 150-3, and 150-4 may be coupled to each other by using a linkage apparatus. Therefore, in the switching operation, no matter which sub-switch is switched, the remaining sub-switches are switched from one power output terminal of each sub-switch to another power output terminal. Because the first switch assembly 140 selectively switches only the power input terminal 142 to one intermediate output terminal (for example, 141-2) and the remaining intermediate output terminals (for example, 141-1, 141-3, and 141-4) are not connected to the power input terminal 142, an operation of another sub-switch unrelated to the target charging terminal does not affect charging. Apparently, in this associated operation manner, switching each sub-switch does not need to be separately controlled, thereby simplifying control of the second switch assembly 150. In some embodiments, each of the at least one sub-switch 150-1, . . . , and 150-4 includes a same quantity of power output terminals. Each sub-switch has the same quantity of power output terminals, which helps to ensure that all power output terminals of all sub-switches can be switched when all the sub-switches are operated in an associated manner, without separately controlling a sub-switch, thereby further simplifying control of the second switch assembly 150.
It can be learned from the foregoing description that the power allocation device 100 uses a two-level power allocation architecture of the first switch assembly 140 and the second switch assembly 150. The first switch assembly 140 is responsible for the electric-arc extinguishing task, and the second switch assembly 150 is responsible for switching the charging channel. In other words, in the power allocation device 100, only the first switch assembly 140 needs to have the electric-arc extinguishing function. Compared with this, in a conventional power allocation solution in which one power converter is coupled to eight charging terminals, eight arc extinguishing switches need to be provided. Obviously, the improved power allocation device 100 greatly reduces a quantity of arc extinguishing switches, thereby reducing costs of the power allocation device 100. In addition, the first switch assembly 140 may be further used as a first-level switch to switch and select a plurality of channels, and the second switch assembly 150 is used as a second-level switch to switch a charging terminal corresponding to each channel. In this way, a quantity of required switches can be reduced. For example, as shown in
It can be learned from the two embodiments in
From the teachings given in the foregoing descriptions and the related accompanying drawings, many of the modified forms and other implementations of the present disclosure given herein will be realized by a person skilled in the art related to the present disclosure. Therefore, it is to be understood that implementations of the present disclosure are not limited to the disclosed specific implementations, and modifications and other implementations are intended to fall within the scope of the present disclosure. Further, while the foregoing descriptions and related accompanying drawings describe example implementations in the context of some example combinations of parts and/or functions, it should be noted that different combinations of parts and/or functions may be provided by alternative implementations without departing from the scope of the present disclosure. In this regard, for example, other combinations of parts and/or functions that are different from those explicitly described above are also expected to fall within the scope of the present disclosure. Although specific terms are used here, they are used only in general and descriptive meanings and are not intended to be limited.
| Number | Date | Country | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| 202111350580.3 | Nov 2021 | CN | national |
This application is a continuation of International Application No. PCT/CN2022/131765, filed on Nov. 14, 2022, which claims priority to Chinese Patent Application No. 202111350580.3, filed on Nov. 15, 2021. The disclosures of the aforementioned applications are hereby incorporated by reference in their entireties.
| Number | Date | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Parent | PCT/CN2022/131765 | Nov 2022 | WO |
| Child | 18665317 | US |
