Electric Vehicle Charging Station Types | AC, DC charging station

This page on Electric Vehicle Charging Station Types cover AC charging station and DC charging station used for electric vehicle. The feature wise difference between AC charging station and DC charging station is also described.

There are different types of EV chargers as follows.

AC charging Station

AC Charging Station
Image Courtesy:Littelfuse, Inc.

AC charging stations are categorized into following sub types.
• AC level 1 : It delivers AC power from the wall socket to vehicle's on board charger.
• There are two modes viz. mode 1 and mode 2. Input is 120V AC, single phase in both the modes.
• In Mode 1, output is 250V AC single phase (16A max.) or 480V AC three phase (16A max.).
• In Mode 2, output is 250V AC single phase (32A max.) or 480V AC three phase (32A max.).

• AC level 2 : It delivers AC power from electrical supply to vehicle's on board charger.
• It is permanently connected to AC supply with control pilot and shock protection.
• Input is 208 to 240 V single phase AC. Mode 3 falls under this category with
• 250V AC single phase (32A) or 480V AC three phase (32A).

The figure-1 depicts AC charging station. It provides overload protection and ESD suppression. It takes AC input and delivers AC output. Wireless communication such as NFC is employed for providing user access through NFC cards. Modern electric vehicle charging stations communicate with network server via OCPP protocol.

DC charging Station

DC Charging Station
Image Courtesy:Littelfuse, Inc.

• It delivers DC power bypassing the vehicle's on board charger.
• Input: 380V-600V AC, three phase.
• Output: DC, Mode 4 falls under this type.
• Refer EV charging levels which mentions block diagrams of AC level-1, level-2, level-3 and DC type.

The EV charging stations offer efficiency, safety and reliability to the users. EV charging station manufacturers are ABB, Ample, Blink, BP, ChargePoint, Daimler Mercedes Benz, Eaton, Efacec, EVgo, EVBox, G2Mobility, Hyundai, Pacific Gas and Electric, Phihong, Renault, RWE, Schneider Electric, Shell, Siemens, Webasto etc.

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