Investigating PHEV wind balancing capabilities using heuristics and model predictive control

The strive for sustainable energy systems will most likely lead to an increased use of renewable energy sources which to a large extent are fluctuating. Therefore, a larger demand for balancing capacity will be required to maintain system security. Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicles (PHEV) represent a potential storage which could offer additional balancing power. Here, the applicability of PHEVs for this purpose is investigated. The study is performed in a system including a wind farm. The PHEV storage management approaches are based on a heuristic- and on a model predictive control scheme. They are compared in case studies. It is shown that the heuristic scheme is scalable while both schemes are able to balance the forecast error of renewable sources to an acceptable level.