Optimal Scheduling for Electric Vehicle Charging under Variable Maximum Charging Power

The large-scale integration of electric vehicles (EVs) into power systems is expected to lead to challenges in the operation of the charging infrastructure. In this paper, we deal with the problem of an aggregator coordinating charging schedules of EVs with the objective of minimizing the total charging cost. In particular, unlike most previous studies, which assumed constant maximum charging power, we assume that the maximum charging power can vary according to the current state of charge (SOC). Under this assumption, we propose two charging schemes, namely non-preemptive and preemptive charging. The difference between these two is whether interruptions during the charging process are allowed or not. We formulate the EV charging-scheduling problem for each scheme and propose a formulation that can prevent frequent interruptions. Our numerical simulations compare different charging schemes and demonstrate that preemptive charging with limited interruptions is an attractive alternative in terms of both cost and practicality. We also show that the proposed formulations can be applied in practice to solve large-scale charging-scheduling problems.