A Bi-level Electric Vehicle Scheduling Strategy in Parking Lots for Peak Load Management

The increase in demand at the distribution level due to the advent of Electric Vehicles (EVs) could pose serious grid problems. One of the significant challenges is the requirement of network augmentation and generation required to cater to peak load. In this context, we present two-stage optimal management of the EV fleet in a distribution system aimed at reducing the peak load while maximizing the EV accommodation. A Demand Response (DR) based optimization problem is solved for calculating the EV Charging Stations (EVCS) power schedules, with the objective of peak load reduction in the first level. It considers the Critical Peak included Real Time Pricing (CP-RTP) strategy for Peak Load Reduction (PLR). Following this, we solve another optimization model to maximize the EV accommodation for the power schedules calculated in the first stage. The proposed two-stage EV management strategy is tested on an IEEE 33 bus radial balanced system for various EV penetration levels for validity and scalability. A comparative analysis of proposed EV scheduling framework is carried out to demonstrate the value proposition in contrast to hourly day ahead EV scheduling.