A comparison of two GIV mechanisms for providing ancillary services at the University of Delaware

At the University of Delaware, we are providing ancillary services by controlling the bidirectional power transfer between 15 EVs and the grid. To control this power transfer, a set of algorithms, models and interactions is used, called a “GIV (Grid Integrated Vehicle) mechanism”. In literature, many GIV mechanisms are proposed. However, because these mechanisms are evaluated independently in specific scenarios, their differences are not always clear. In this paper, we take a first step in tackling this challenge by comparing two different GIV mechanisms in the same scenario at the University of Delaware: a decentralized and a centralized mechanism. In the decentralized mechanism, which is currently operational at our test environment, EVs decide autonomously on the amount of power available for ancillary services. In the centralized mechanism, a central server gathers all EV information and makes a decision for all EVs. In evaluation, both GIV mechanisms are compared with each other. Simulation results show that the centralized mechanism outperforms its decentralized counterpart in terms of available power for ancillary services. On the other hand, the decentralized mechanism enables large-scale integration by distributing computations across all EVs.