8,499 research outputs found
Consolidating Bus Charger Deployment and Fleet Management for Public Transit Electrification: A Life-Cycle Cost Analysis Framework
Despite rapid advances in urban transit electrification, the progress of systematic planning and management of the electric bus (EB) fleet is falling behind. In this research, the fundamental issues affecting the nascent EB system are first reviewed, including charging station deployment, battery sizing, bus scheduling, and life-cycle analysis. At present, EB systems are planned and operated in a sequential manner, with bus scheduling occurring after the bus fleet and infrastructure have been deployed, resulting in low resource utilization or waste. We propose a mixed-integer programming model to consolidate charging station deployment and bus fleet management with the lowest possible life-cycle costs (LCCs), consisting of ownership, operation, maintenance, and emissions expenses, thereby narrowing the gap between optimal planning and operations. A tailored branch-and-price approach is further introduced to reduce the computational effort required for finding optimal solutions. Analytical results of a real-world case show that, compared with the current bus operational strategies and charging station layout, the LCC of one bus line can be decreased significantly by 30.4%. The proposed research not only performs life-cycle analysis but also provides transport authorities and operators with reliable charger deployment and bus schedules for single- and multi-line services, both of which are critical requirements for decision support in future transit systems with high electrification penetration, helping to accelerate the transition to sustainable mobility
Decentralized Greedy-Based Algorithm for Smart Energy Management in Plug-in Electric Vehicle Energy Distribution Systems
Variations in electricity tariffs arising due to stochastic demand loads on the power grids have stimulated research in finding optimal charging/discharging scheduling solutions for electric vehicles (EVs). Most of the current EV scheduling solutions are either centralized, which suffer from low reliability and high complexity, while existing decentralized solutions do not facilitate the efficient scheduling of on-move EVs in large-scale networks considering a smart energy distribution system. Motivated by smart cities applications, we consider in this paper the optimal scheduling of EVs in a geographically large-scale smart energy distribution system where EVs have the flexibility of charging/discharging at spatially-deployed smart charging stations (CSs) operated by individual aggregators. In such a scenario, we define the social welfare maximization problem as the total profit of both supply and demand sides in the form of a mixed integer non-linear programming (MINLP) model. Due to the intractability, we then propose an online decentralized algorithm with low complexity which utilizes effective heuristics to forward each EV to the most profitable CS in a smart manner. Results of simulations on the IEEE 37 bus distribution network verify that the proposed algorithm improves the social welfare by about 30% on average with respect to an alternative scheduling strategy under the equal participation of EVs in charging and discharging operations. Considering the best-case performance where only EV profit maximization is concerned, our solution also achieves upto 20% improvement in flatting the final electricity load. Furthermore, the results reveal the existence of an optimal number of CSs and an optimal vehicle-to-grid penetration threshold for which the overall profit can be maximized. Our findings serve as guidelines for V2G system designers in smart city scenarios to plan a cost-effective strategy for large-scale EVs distributed energy management
Optimal electric bus fleet scheduling considering battery degradation and non-linear charging profile
This study aims to determine the battery electric bus service and charging strategy to minimize the total operational cost of transit system, where the cost incurred by battery degradation and non-linear charging profile is taken into account. We formulate a set partitioning model for this problem, subject to predefined trip schedule and limited charging facilities. A tailored branch-and-price approach is then proposed to find the global optimal solution. In particular, we develop an effective multi-label correcting method to deal with the pricing problem (i.e., generating columns) in column generation procedure within the branch-and-price framework, coupled with a dual stabilization technique with an aim to accelerate the convergence rate. Meanwhile, a branch-and-bound solution approach is adopted to guarantee optimal integer solutions. Numerical experiments and a case study arising from real transit network are conducted to further assess the efficiency and applicability of the proposed method. Our experiments confirm that, despite the complexity of the considered problem, optimal solution can still be generated within reasonable computational time using the proposed algorithm. The results also show considerable cost saving (about 10.1–27.3% less) if this optimization model is implemented, mainly contributed by the substantial extension of battery life. A number of managerial insights stemmed from the numerical case study are outlined, which can help transit operators formulate more cost-efficient electric bus fleet scheduling plans
Optimal Charging of Electric Vehicles in Smart Grid: Characterization and Valley-Filling Algorithms
Electric vehicles (EVs) offer an attractive long-term solution to reduce the
dependence on fossil fuel and greenhouse gas emission. However, a fleet of EVs
with different EV battery charging rate constraints, that is distributed across
a smart power grid network requires a coordinated charging schedule to minimize
the power generation and EV charging costs. In this paper, we study a joint
optimal power flow (OPF) and EV charging problem that augments the OPF problem
with charging EVs over time. While the OPF problem is generally nonconvex and
nonsmooth, it is shown recently that the OPF problem can be solved optimally
for most practical power networks using its convex dual problem. Building on
this zero duality gap result, we study a nested optimization approach to
decompose the joint OPF and EV charging problem. We characterize the optimal
offline EV charging schedule to be a valley-filling profile, which allows us to
develop an optimal offline algorithm with computational complexity that is
significantly lower than centralized interior point solvers. Furthermore, we
propose a decentralized online algorithm that dynamically tracks the
valley-filling profile. Our algorithms are evaluated on the IEEE 14 bus system,
and the simulations show that the online algorithm performs almost near
optimality ( relative difference from the offline optimal solution) under
different settings.Comment: This paper is temporarily withdrawn in preparation for journal
submissio
Model Predictive Control for Smart Grids with Multiple Electric-Vehicle Charging Stations
Next-generation power grids will likely enable concurrent service for
residences and plug-in electric vehicles (PEVs). While the residence power
demand profile is known and thus can be considered inelastic, the PEVs' power
demand is only known after random PEVs' arrivals. PEV charging scheduling aims
at minimizing the potential impact of the massive integration of PEVs into
power grids to save service costs to customers while power control aims at
minimizing the cost of power generation subject to operating constraints and
meeting demand. The present paper develops a model predictive control (MPC)-
based approach to address the joint PEV charging scheduling and power control
to minimize both PEV charging cost and energy generation cost in meeting both
residence and PEV power demands. Unlike in related works, no assumptions are
made about the probability distribution of PEVs' arrivals, the known PEVs'
future demand, or the unlimited charging capacity of PEVs. The proposed
approach is shown to achieve a globally optimal solution. Numerical results for
IEEE benchmark power grids serving Tesla Model S PEVs show the merit of this
approach
Modeling and Real-Time Scheduling of DC Platform Supply Vessel for Fuel Efficient Operation
DC marine architecture integrated with variable speed diesel generators (DGs)
has garnered the attention of the researchers primarily because of its ability
to deliver fuel efficient operation. This paper aims in modeling and to
autonomously perform real-time load scheduling of dc platform supply vessel
(PSV) with an objective to minimize specific fuel oil consumption (SFOC) for
better fuel efficiency. Focus has been on the modeling of various components
and control routines, which are envisaged to be an integral part of dc PSVs.
Integration with photovoltaic-based energy storage system (ESS) has been
considered as an option to cater for the short time load transients. In this
context, this paper proposes a real-time transient simulation scheme, which
comprises of optimized generation scheduling of generators and ESS using dc
optimal power flow algorithm. This framework considers real dynamics of dc PSV
during various marine operations with possible contingency scenarios, such as
outage of generation systems, abrupt load changes, and unavailability of ESS.
The proposed modeling and control routines with real-time transient simulation
scheme have been validated utilizing the real-time marine simulation platform.
The results indicate that the coordinated treatment of renewable based ESS with
DGs operating with optimized speed yields better fuel savings. This has been
observed in improved SFOC operating trajectory for critical marine missions.
Furthermore, SFOC minimization at multiple suboptimal points with its treatment
in the real-time marine system is also highlighted
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