Optimal Charging Control for Electric Vehicles in Smart Microgrids with Renewable Energy Sources

There is growing interest in plug-in electric vehicles (EVs). Charging EVs from smart microgrids fueled by renewable energy resources is becoming a popular green approach. Although some works have been done about renewable energy sources and EVs in smart microgrids, the stochastic characteristics and the dynamic interplay between these two important green solutions should be carefully considered. In this paper, we study the charging policies in smart microgrids with EVs and renewable energy sources. Based on the renewable energy sources states, battery states, and the number of charging EVs, an optimal charging policy is obtained to maximize the energy utilization with service availability constraints. We formulate the optimal charging problem as a stochastic decision process. Simulation results are presented to show that the proposed scheme can improve the service availability for EVs in microgrids fueled by renewable energy sources.