Electric Vehicle Fleets as Balancing Instrument in Micro-Grids

Abstract

Micro-grids have become the building block of modern energy systems, where distributed resources are the characterizing feature. The charging operation of electric vehicles can be exploited as a flexible load to achieve operational goals of the micro-grid. In the particular case of car-sharing fleets, the degrees of freedom in the charging procedures are reduced when compared to private users. In this work, we illustrate how a car sharing fleet can be incorporated as a flexible load in the micro-grid management system. A linear optimization problem is formulated, where the cost function makes a trade-off between the gain in flexibility in the micro-grid and the loss incurred by the car-sharing service for delaying the recharging procedure of the EV. The proposed approach is evaluated on a data set of charging events generated by a real car-sharing fleet showing that the EMS allows reducing the daily peak demand requested to the public grid and diminishes the operational costs.

A Systematic Review of Optimization Approaches for the Integration of Electric Vehicles in Public Buildings

“…As an example of the previously mentioned capabilities, Ref. [21] discusses how EVs can be a flexible load resource for a car-sharing fleet. Additionally, the impacts at the economic and energy levels, as well as the challenges and prospects of the increased presence of EVs and their technological development, have been widely studied in recent years [22][23][24][25][26][27].…”

Energy Management Systems for Optimal Operation of Electrical Micro/Nanogrids

“…The control and management of microgrids is dealt with in three articles focused, respectively, on power flow control, on BSSs capability of managing black start and islanding events, and on use of EV fleets as a flexible load for balancing purpose in the microgrid management system [3][4][5].…”

“…Finally, Gruosso and Ruiz in [5] explore the possibility of using EV fleets as a balancing instrument in a microgrid by exploiting their charging operations. In this article, an optimal control problem is formulated where a degree of flexibility is introduced in the recharging process by increasing the interval available to achieve the target SoC status, at the cost of reducing the time available for the car-sharing service.…”

Optimization of Grid Energy Balance Using Vehicle-to-Grid Network System

“…Some scholars have also explored the hybridization of V2G systems with variable renewable energy (VRE) facilities [24] and its integration into smart grid (SG) management [25][26][27]. Furthermore, the feasibility of this approach in a broader range of applications has been evaluated by including micro-grids in [28].…”