Mobility-Aware Vehicle-to-Grid (V2G) Optimization for Uniform Utilization in Smart Grid Based Power Distribution Network

One of the critical bottlenecks of high penetration of Electric Vehicles (EV) is uncoordinated, simultaneous charging of many EVs that can potentially impact the electric distribution grid with unwanted peak load demand. V2G technology enables the bidirectional flow of electric energy where EVs can also discharge energy to the grid from their batteries aiming to lower the peak demand. Our V2G optimization approach employs mobility information to balance peak utilization among differently utilized distribution segments by assigning each EV to an optimal Electric Vehicle Supply Equipment (EVSE) enabled parking lot. By aggregating geographically dispersed EVs and micro-grids with renewable energy sources as a virtual power plant (VPP), we proposed a scalable VPP based V2G optimization architecture integrated with VANET. Compared with existing solutions, our convex optimization algorithm uses fewer variables, attains uniform utilization of grid nodes by optimal EV charging/discharging profiles. By simulation, we showed that this novel mobility-aware, scalable V2G optimization algorithm can reduce or significantly postpone the need of expensive upgrade of power distribution infrastructure.