Vehicle charging stations with solar canopy: A realistic case study within a smart grid environment

This paper presents a case study of a charging stations with solar canopy within a smart grid environment. The charging stations and solar canopy are installed in the main campus of Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) as part of its “Perfect Power Initiative”. This paper presents the configuration of the charging station and the solar canopy followed by the description of the technical solution for data acquisition, communication and display. The collected data from the installed charging stations and solar canopy, which can be utilized as reference for economic assessment, return of investment analysis, or other related researches, are presented. The optimal operation of charging stations within smart grid environment considering the real time electricity price and the Vehicle-to-grid (V2G) capacity is simulated and studied. Simulation results show that the charging stations with V2G capacity have the capability of both providing economic benefit and increasing the reliability of the smart grid system.