Enhancing Power Distribution System Flexibility Using Electric Vehicle Charging Management

In this paper, a two-stage charging management framework is proposed to exploit the potential flexibility of Electric Vehicles (EVs). The aim is to reduce drastic variations in distribution system net load caused by integration of intermittent renewable distributed generation (DG) units. In the first stage, a home-based charging method is formulated in which the desired charging schedule of EVs is obtained by minimizing the cost of energy taking into account owners' preferences. The attained charging schedules are then announced to EVs Coordinator Agent (ECA) which, as the second stage, applies an LP optimization to reduce the cost of ramp provision. Moreover, an incentive scheme is considered to motivate EV owners to participate in the controlled charging program which allows the ECA to modify their desired schedules in exchange for financial bonuses. The simulation results show that the proposed framework can efficiently reduce the system net load ramp and associated costs without disturbing individual convenience.