Scalable Network-Constrained Electric Vehicle Charging in Multiphase Distribution Grids

Although electric vehicles are considered a viable solution to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, studies have shown that their uncoordinated charging will have a noticeably adverse influence on power network operation. To guarantee the secure and economic operation of distribution grids, a network-constrained electric vehicle scheduling problem is formulated here. Leveraging a recently proposed linearized distribution grid model, the goal is to coordinate electric vehicle charging while minimizing the power supply cost, and respecting critical voltage regulation, power flow, and unbalance constraints. Optimizing variables across grid buses is accomplished using the alternating direction method of multipliers. Provisioning large-scale fleets, the task of scheduling co-located vehicles is handled by the recently revived Frank-Wolfe method. The derived charging scheme features affordable computational requirements from the vehicle controller and minimal information exchanges. Numerical tests demonstrate the efficiency of the novel schemes, and confirm the necessity of orchestrating vehicle charging across phases.