An EV Charging Scheduling Methodology to Reduce Demand and Energy Charges in Industrial and Commercial Sites

With the increasing penetration of plug-in electric vehicles (EVs), peak demand charges can make up a considerable portion of the electricity bills of industrial and commercial sites that host an EV charging station. Typically, daily peak demand minimization-based EV charging scheduling strategies are used to avoid significant demand charges. However, these approaches may lead to suboptimal results for reducing total electricity cost as they do not account for the energy charges and the historical peak values within a billing period. In this work, a receding horizon control-based EV charging scheduling methodology is proposed to simultaneously reduce the demand and energy charges of an industrial/commercial site with an EV charging station. As a salient feature, the methodology maintains data privacy as the confidential power system- and EV-related data are not circulated. Case studies on a workplace charging setting reveal that the proposed methodology is able to minimize the demand and energy charges to a greater extent when compared to conventional strategies.

I. Introduction

With the increasing adoption of plug-in electric vehicles (EVs), workplaces have begun to provide EV charging facilities, both within the scope of their corporate social responsibility and for the convenience of their employees and visitors [1], [2]. EV owners can alleviate their range anxiety, which is one of the barriers to the widespread deployment of EVs, as they can charge their vehicles during the day through the workplace charging facilities. According to a recent report, more than 10,000 workplace EV supply equipment have been installed across the US as of Q2 2021 [3].