Demand-side management in smart grid operation considering electric vehicles load shifting and vehicle-to-grid support

Abstract Demand fluctuation in electric power systems is undesirable from many points of view; this has sparked an interest in demand-side strategies that try to establish mechanisms that allow for a flatter demand curve. Particularly interesting is load shifting, a strategy that considers the shifting of certain amounts of energy demand from some time periods to other time periods with lower expected demand, typically in response to price signals. In this paper, an optimization-based model is proposed to perform load shifting in the context of smart grids. In our model, we define agents that are responsible for load, generation and storage management; in particular, some of them are electric vehicle aggregators. An important feature of the proposed approach is the inclusion of electric vehicles with vehicle-to-grid capabilities; with this possibility, electric vehicles can provide certain services to the power grid, including load shifting and congestion management. Results are reported for a test system based on the IEEE 37-bus distribution grid; the effectiveness of the approach and the effect of the hourly energy prices on flattening the load curve are shown.