Apartment-level electric vehicle charging coordination: peak load reduction and charging payment minimization

Abstract In future apartment complexes, high penetration of electric vehicles (EVs) may cause to significantly increase electricity load at certain times, and the demand for uncoordinated EV charging power may significantly affect the stability of the apartment-level power grid. In order to efficiently accommodate the significant charging demand from a large number of EVs in apartment complexes, we propose an apartment-level EV charging coordination scheme to not only reduce the peak EV charging load but also minimize the apartment-level EV charging payment, and then we validate it through various case studies. To be specific, we compare the performance of the proposed EV charging coordination scheme with that of a typical as-soon-as-possible (ASAP) charging scheme and a random charging scheme in terms of peak-to-average power ratio (PAPR), relative charging duration (RCD), and total charging payment. It is observed that the proposed coordination scheme manages the apartment-level power grid more stable, and EV owners in this apartment-level power grid can obtain economic benefits by participating in the EV charging coordination.