On the Integration of E-Vehicle Data for Advanced Management of Private Electrical Charging Systems

The management of modern power grids requires the integration of performing communication systems, capable of enabling the interconnection and the interaction between different devices, such as distributed energy resources, storage systems and protections. Recently, the increasing diffusion of E-Vehicles (EVs) is going to introduce an additional player that should be taken into consideration for the development of future grid management systems: the electrical charging station. Even though each charging station requires only limited power from the grid (up to 44 kW in alternating current and up to 150 kW in direct current), the installation of a large number of devices could introduce relevant issues to the grid management and control, mainly due to the unpredictability of the power demand profiles of EVs. Typically, EVs and electrical charging stations exchange information about the required charging current, but, commonly, few data are available about the State of Charge (SOC) of the EV battery and the typical EV usage profile. The availability of such information, however, represents a key factor for the optimal management of energy flows, especially in private grids managed by an Energy Management System (EMS). In this paper, a gateway for the communication among an EV and a local information system has been designed and deployed in a real system. The proposed device is able to directly recover data from the EV On Board Diagnostic (OBD) system. The feasibility of the proposed approach has been validated by monitoring the SOC of an EV over one month.