POWER CONVERSION APPARATUS AND POWER CONTROL METHOD

摘要

Charge efficiency of normal charge is improved without restricting an operation of a low-voltage load of an electric vehicle during the normal charge. During a charge of a high-voltage battery of a vehicle, when a determination of the normal charge is made, and when a determination that a mode switching target load is not operated is made, power saving mode transition processing is performed. Therefore, an operating mode of a DC-DC converter, which steps down a voltage at the high-voltage battery and supplies the stepped-down voltage to a low-voltage battery and a low-voltage load, is set to a power saving mode in which consumption power is reduced compared with a normal mode. When a determination that a start-up manipulation of the mode switching target load is performed is made, the operating mode of the DC-DC converter is changed to the normal mode.

主权项

1. A power conversion apparatus comprising:
a switching element that is driven to step down a voltage of a first battery for running an electric vehicle, the stepped-down voltage being supplied to a second battery and a plurality of loads; a switching control unit that controls drive of the switching element; a load monitoring unit that detects existence or non-existence of a start-up manipulation of a predetermined target load in the loads; a charge detection unit that detects existence or non-existence of a charge and a charge method of the first battery; a mode setting unit that sets a supply operating mode of the power conversion apparatus to a second mode whose consumption power is less than that of a first mode during the charge of the first battery, and changes the second mode to the first mode when the load monitoring unit detects the start-up manipulation of the target load while the supply operating mode is set to the second mode; and a control-cycle control unit that lengthens a control cycle of the power conversion apparatus compared with the first mode when the supply operating mode is set to the second mode.