Decentralized charging control for large populations of plug-in electric vehicles: Application of the Nash certainty equivalence principle

The paper develops and illustrates a novel decentralized charging control algorithm for large populations of plug-in electric vehicles (PEVs). The proposed algorithm is an application of the so-called Nash certainty equivalence principle (or mean-field games.) The control scheme seeks to achieve social optimality by establishing a PEV charging schedule that fills the overnight demand valley. The paper discusses implementation issues and computational complexity, and illustrates concepts with various numerical examples.