Optimal Power Market Participation of Plug-In Electric Vehicles Pooled by Distribution Feeder

Electric-vehicle grid integration has the potential to stress distribution network equipment and increase peak consumption, unless properly managed. In this paper, we use dynamic programming to develop a decision support algorithm and market participation policy for a load aggregator (LA) managing the charging of plug-in electric vehicles (PEVs) connecting at the same distribution network feeder. The LA submits inflexible and flexible bids to a liberalized hour-ahead power market, while monitoring localized feeder and PEV rate constraints. Flexible bids, which include a bid price or utility, can be cleared as regulation service, cleared as energy, or rejected by the market operator. These market events are probabilistically included within the modeling framework. A case study, based on New York independent system operator data, found that the market participation policy may reduce daily electricity costs for PEVs significantly more than is expected through forecasted electricity-price-based scheduling.