Real-time control of plug-in electric vehicles for congestion management of radial lv networks: A comparison of implementations

César García Veloso* (Corresponding Author), Kalle Rauma, Julián Fernández, Christian Rehtanz

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleScientificpeer-review

6 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

The global proliferation of plug-in electric vehicles (PEVs) poses a major challenge for current and future distribution systems. If uncoordinated, their charging process may cause congestion on both network transformers and feeders, resulting in overheating, deterioration, protection triggering and eventual risk of failure, seriously compromising the stability and reliability of the grid. To mitigate such impacts and increase their hosting capacity in radial distribution systems, the present study compares the levels of effectiveness and performances of three alternative centralized thermal management formulations for a real-time agent-based charge control algorithm that aims to minimize the total impact upon car owners. A linear formulation and a convex formulation of the optimization problem are presented and solved respectively by means of integer linear programming and a genetic algorithm. The obtained results are then compared, in terms of their total impact on the end-users and overall performance, with those of the current heuristic implementation of the algorithm. All implementations were tested using a simulation environment considering multiple vehicle penetration and base load levels, and equipment modeled after commercially available charging stations and vehicles. Results show how faster resolution times are achieved by the heuristic implementation, but no significant differences between formulations exist in terms of network management and end-user impact. Every vehicle reached its maximum charge level while all thermal impacts were mitigated for all considered scenarios. The most demanding scenario showcased over a 30% reduction in the peak load for all thermal variants.

Original languageEnglish
Article number4227
JournalEnergies
Volume13
Issue number6
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Aug 2020
MoE publication typeA1 Journal article-refereed

Funding

Acknowledgments: This work is the result of a Master’s Thesis project submitted to both the Technical University of Catalonia (Spain) and KTH Royal Institute of Technology (Sweden) [36].The authors would like to extend their gratitude to the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT) and InnoEnergy both for their financial support and encouragement. Kalle Rauma acknowledges the German Federal Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure and the support through the project “PuLS—Parken und Laden in der Stadt.”

Keywords

  • Active distribution networks
  • Centralized thermal management
  • Plug-in electric vehicles
  • Radial low voltage networks
  • Real-time control
  • User impact minimization

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