Cost-benefit analysis for multiple agents considering an electric vehicle charging/discharging strategy and grid integration

An increasing number of electric vehicles (EVs) will be charged/discharged in EV charging stations (EVCSs) in distribution systems. Grid-2-vehicle (G2V) and vehicle-2-grid (V2G) operation of EVs are economically and technically rewarding only when an optimal G2V/V2G strategy is properly developed. In this study, a scheduling scheme is developed which mainly focus on guaranteeing the rewards of all agents (e.g EVs, EVCSs, and electricity suppliers (ESs)) participating in V2G and G2V operation. Based on the proposed strategy, EVs independently plan their charging/discharging depending on the shortest driving route and cost/benefit offered by EVCSs. Furthermore, each EVCS finds the best ES to purchase electricity from the wholesale market. The benefits of all agents in EV's V2G and G2V operation are taken into account by formulating three optimization problems. Each problem belongs to each agent. To implement the proposed strategy, a cloud scheduling system is operated to collect required information from all agents, solve the optimization problems, and ultimately send the results to relevant agents. Optimal hourly electricity prices are determined for the three agents. For simulation purposes, nine EVCSs and three ESs are facilitated for charging/discharging of EVs to visualize and validate the modeling results. The results show that by implementing the proposed strategy, the cost of EVs decreases by 18%, and the revenues of EVCSs and ESs are raised by 21% and 23%, respectively, compared to the case in which EVs do not use the proposed strategy in EV's V2G and G2V operation.