Electric vehicle/photovoltaic test and evaluation program. Final report

The University of South Florida (USF) in collaboration with Florida utilities and other organizations have executed a research and development program for the test and evaluation of Electric Vehicles. Its activity as one of 13 US Department of Energy (DOE) Electric Vehicle Test Site Operators was funded by DOE and the Florida Energy Office (FEO). The purpose of this program was to determine the efficiency of electric vehicles under commuter and fleet conditions in Florida. An additional feature of this program was the development of a utility interconnected photovoltaic (PV) system for charging electric vehicles with solar energy. USF developed an effective and economical automated on board Mobile Data Acquisition System (MDAS) that records vehicle operating data with minimum operator interface. Computer programs were written by the USF team to achieve processing and analysis of the vehicles` MDAS data, again minimizing human involvement, human effort and human error. A large number of passenger cars, vans and pickup trucks were studied. Procedures for monitoring them were developed to a point where the equipment is commercially available and its operation has become routine. The nations first PV solar powered electric vehicle charging station and test facility was designed, developed and put into operation under this program. The charging station is capable of direct DC-DC (PV to battery) or AC-DC (power grid to battery) charging and it routes unused PV power to the University`s power grid for other use. The DC-DC charging system is more efficient, more dependable and safer than DC-AC-DC and traditional methods of DC-DC charging. A fortuitous correlation was observed between battery charging demand and solar power availability in commuter application of electric vehicles