Electric Vehicle Charging Management in Parking Structures

This chapter fits the scope of the book that investigates the interconnection between energy networks and intelligent transportation systems as it presents solutions for real‐world problems in such interconnected systems, i.e., the management of electric vehicle (EV) charging in parking structures. Future parking structures are expected to be interconnected with various energy sources to be capable of providing, apart from parking services, charging services, in an efficient, fair, and reliable way. Hence, as the charging management of EVs within such parking structures raises a number of challenges, in this chapter a number of techniques are presented considering fairness and efficiency charging criteria, having as their main focus the transition towards a green and sustainable economy.According to the International Energy Agency, the number of EVs in 2030 is expected to represent more than 30% of the vehicles sold globally. Nevertheless, despite the increasing popularity of EVs, their numbers fall well short of the 60% share needed by 2030 so as to align with the zero CO₂ emissions requirement by 2050. Scarce charging infrastructures are the most significant barrier, hindering the acceleration in the adoption of EVs worldwide. To minimize such barriers, many governments and the private sector are starting to invest in the roll‐out of charging stations within parking structures. Clearly, such investments create new opportunities for the organizations operating the parking structures. Nevertheless, how the charging of EVs is coordinated in parking structures offering such services is a challenging scheduling problem that needs to be addressed.In this work, we discuss the main related challenges while the various optimization targets and technologies considered in the literature are presented. Amongst these targets, the fair charging scheduling problem is analytically examined, as it is a problem that is of significance to the parking operators that are trying to keep all their customers satisfied. Specifically, we present two fair scheduling algorithms where fairness refers to different attributes (delay, level of charging), while system efficiency is also considered. The resulting efficiency‐fairness trade‐off along with the limitations in implementing the proposed algorithms is subsequently presented.