Energy Management Controller for Bi-Directional EV Charging System Using Prioritized Energy Distribution

The growing adoption of electric vehicles (EVs) has intensified the need for efficient, intelligent, and grid-independent Bi-directional charging systems. Conventional EV charging solutions heavily rely on grid electricity, leading to high energy costs, grid instability, and low renewable energy utilization. Existing Bi-directional charging systems often lack real-time prioritization of energy sources, fail to optimize solar and energy storage system (ESS) usage, and do not incorporate adaptive control mechanisms for varying grid conditions. To address these gaps, this study proposes an Energy Management Controller (EMC) for Bi-Directional EV Charging, integrating a prioritized solar to ESS to grid energy distribution strategy to maximize renewable energy usage while ensuring system stability and cost efficiency. The proposed EMC is implemented on an ESP32 microcontroller and manages energy flow via a 6-channel relay module. A temperature-based safety mechanism is embedded to prevent overheating, shutting down relays if the system temperature exceeds 50°C. The control logic dynamically adjusts power flow based on grid stress levels, solar irradiance, ESS state of charge (SOC), and EV battery SOC. The system is monitored using ThingsBoard for real-time visualization and InfluxDB for historical data analysis. Experimental validation across 12 predefined operational scenarios demonstrated that the EMC effectively reduces grid dependency to 15%, achieves renewable energy utilization of up to 90%, and maintains a fast relay switching response time of 50ms. The safety mechanism successfully prevents overheating, ensuring reliable operation under all test conditions.

@article{Abdullah2025,
  title     = {Energy Management Controller for Bi-Directional EV Charging System Using Prioritized Energy Distribution},
  journal   = {International Journal of Advanced Computer Science and Applications},
  volume    = {16},
  number    = {4},
  year      = {2025},
  publisher = {The Science and Information Organization},
  author    = {Ezmin Abdullah and Muhammad Wafiy Firdaus Jalil and Nabil M. Hidayat},
  doi       = {10.14569/IJACSA.2025.0160438},
  url       = {https://doi.org/10.14569/IJACSA.2025.0160438}
}