A Linear Program for System-Level Control of Regional PHEV Charging Stations

This paper studies dynamic control of a system of plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV) charging stations. A finite horizon stochastic program is presented. Based upon the 15-min updated period of the electricity market price, the objective function is to maximize profit, which is the revenue benefit from selling back to the grid and the charging of the vehicles minus the cost of buying electricity from the grid. The state variables in each 15-min time period consist of the total wind purchased from the system, solar power generation at each charging station, total demand at each station, and nodal market price at stations' location. A stochastic program is formulated, and the mean value problem as a deterministic linear program is solved. Potential strategies are presented to provide insight into the behavior of the system.