Low Carbon Electric Vehicle Charging Coordination in Coupled Transportation and Power Networks

As a part of the global decarbonization agenda, the electrification of the transport sector involving the large-scale integration of electric vehicles (EV) constitutes one of the key initiatives. However, the upstream generation carbon emissions associated with EV charging demand are still accountable which should not be overlooked. In this context, efficient coordination of EV flows and their charging demand in the coupled transportation and power networks promise significant decarbonization potential. Nevertheless, such potential can only be realized under adequate incentive mechanisms. In this article, a novel low carbon EV charging coordination approach in coupled transportation and power network is proposed and formulated as a bi-level optimization. In the upper level, an AC optimal power flow problem is formulated and solved to determine the optimal operation for power system. Then the carbon emission flow tracing is performed to compute rational locational-differentiated price signals. Given price-based incentives, the lower level employs traffic user equilibrium to describe the distribution of EV path flow and charging demands taking into account the uncertain traffic condition, and the aggregate charging demands are fed back to the upper level. The bi-level problem is solved iteratively through a modified particle swarm algorithm with enhanced convergence properties. Case studies demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed coordination method in effectively mitigating the global carbon emission of the coupled networks.