Optimal Distributed Charging Rate Control of Plug-In Electric Vehicles for Demand Management

Plug-in electric vehicles (PEVs) are a promising alternative to conventional fuel-based automobiles. However, a large number of PEVs connected to the grid simultaneously with poor charging coordination may impose severe stress on the power system. To allocate the available charging power, this paper proposes an optimal charging rate control of PEVs based on consensus algorithm, which aligns each PEV's interest with the system's benefit. The proposed strategy is implemented based on a multi-agent system framework, which only requires information exchanges among neighboring agents. The proposed distributed control solution enables the sharing of computational and communication burden among distributed agents, thus it is robust, scalable, and convenient for plug-and-play operation which allows PEVs to join and leave at arbitrary times. The effectiveness of the proposed algorithm is validated through simulations.