Techno-Economic Collaboration of PEV Fleets in Energy Management of Microgrids

This paper develops a generalized energy management approach for smart microgrids (MGs) with the collaboration of plug-in electric vehicle (PEV) charging facilities in both active and reactive powers exchange. In addition to the monetary saving and economical benefits, this feature reveals a promising opportunity for power quality improvement in modern MGs. To do this, an efficient multi-objective framework is proposed for the optimal operation scheduling of MGs. The optimization model incorporates the full potential benefits of PEV fleets in balancing both active and reactive powers supply and demand. The multi-objective formulation lies within a mixed-integer linear programming fashion, which is tackled by ε-constraint method. A quadruple linear operating area is envisioned for PEV fleet inverters caped with the maximum apparent power limit. A suitable voltage-dependent load model, with negligible error, is deployed to tailor the proposed approach for real-world applications. The new methodology is successfully applied to a 33-bus test MG with illustrative case studies. The obtained results are reported in terms of voltage profile improvement, released capacity of generating units, moderated operation of under-load tap changers, and MG operation cost reduction.