Distributed Initialization-Free Cost-Optimal Charging Control of Plug-In Electric Vehicles for Demand Management

Abstract

This paper considers the optimal charging problem of plug-in electric vehicles (PEVs) on demand side management. PEVs provide a promising alternative solution to reduction of environmental pollution and fuel emission. With a large number of PEVs connected to the grid, a well-designed charging coordination approach is needed to release the impacts on the power system. A distributed cooperative control strategy of PEVs is proposed to meet system interests while respecting each PEV's charging constraint. The proposed strategy is distributed, which only needs to be interacted with the neighboring agents. Our analysis shows that the proposed strategy solves the optimal charging problem of PEVs in an initialization-free approach, which avoids any procedure for initialization during PEVs’ charging process. Furthermore, the proposed strategy is robust to the time-varying available charging power and plug-and-play operations. The simulation studies validate the effectiveness of the proposed distributed strategy.