A dynamic point of preferred operation (PPO) scheme for charging electric vehicles in a residential area

Recently, the penetration of electric vehicles (EVs) has been expected to increase gradually. From the power grid point of view, a group of EVs could act as a load as well as energy storage. In order to maintain the stability of electric power grid, we need to properly manage an effective charging mechanism for EVs. In this paper, we investigate the benefits of managing EV charging in order to flatten the total electricity load in a residential area. We model a distribution grid in a residential area including homes with several penetration levels of EVs. We proposed a dynamic point of preferred operation (PPO) as a reference value to flatten the fluctuation of the total electricity load. We investigate the total electricity load for uncontrolled charging, static PPO and the proposed dynamic PPO schemes for charging-only, discharging, and bidirectional energy flow scenarios. Results show that the proposed dynamic PPO scheme can significantly shave the peak and alleviate the fluctuation of the total electricity load in a residential area.