Integration of price-driven demand response using plug-in electric vehicles in smart grids

This paper discusses integration of plug-in electric vehicles in smart grids from different perspectives. First, in order to achieve a grid-friendly charging load profile, a strategy is proposed based on the transactive control paradigm. This charging strategy enables electric vehicle owners to participate in real-time pricing electricity markets to reduce their charging costs. Second, the impact of large-scale adoption of electric vehicles on electricity generation and inter-area flow schedules is discussed. In order to quantify potential changes, an interconnection-scale optimal scheduling problem should be solved to determine hourly tie-line flows. In the presence of price sensitive loads, the objective function of the scheduler is to maximize the total social welfare (i.e., economic surplus) rather than minimize production cost. Third, the utilization of demand response for frequency control purpose is studied. Fast-acting demand response eases the use of slow-ramping generation units, which is particularly important in the case of high penetration levels of intermittent renewable resources to maintain the real-time balance between supply and demand. The procedure described enables estimation the benefits of smart charging in terms of cost and GHG emissions reduction for different renewable portfolio policies.