Smoothing PV Power Fluctuations with Electric Vehicle and its Grid Interaction

The fluctuations in PV power due to weather or passing clouds can reduce the stability and reliability of the solar power generated by grid interfaced PV system. This paper presents a grid interfaced photovoltaic (PV) and Electric Vehicle (EV) integration to smooth PV power fluctuations. A modified Moving Window Average (MWA) is used to smooth the PV power fluctuations. In this proposed method, a smooth PV power is estimated for 15 minutes time step. The difference between the predicted output power and the actual PV generation is provided by the EVs thus making the aggregated output power smooth. Real time one second interval solar data collected from the solar installation at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is used for testing the proposed method. The EV data is taken from UCLA, EV garage charging points. The smoother PV power for 15 min is considered from energy market prospective with its benefits to consumers. An evaluation based on comparative performance is made between the proposed and existing methods. The EV scheduling based on its availability and energy cost is presented for the cases of fully cloudy days and night time. During operation EVs are charged/discharged from/to grid keeping EV user benefits as priority.