The Role of EV Parking Lots for Supporting the Distribution System Operation Considering EV Uncertainties

Due to the dramatic increase in the penetration of the Electric Vehicle Parking Lots (EVPLs) in future, there will be a crucial challenge in the operation of the distribution systems. In this regard, the potential of the EVPLs for acting as a flexible load can be employed besides their capability to support the system with positive or negative reactive power if they are equipped with the required power electronic facilities. Our results show that EVPLs can modify their charging schedule to provide positive or negative reactive power support to improve the system condition in terms of congestion and voltage to let for deploy the cheaper generation sources that result in a decrease in total system cost. In this regard, EVPLs’ location has a very important impact on the optimal operation of the system and the amount of benefit from their active and reactive power support.© 2023 The Authors. Published by ELSEVIER B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0). Peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the 8th International Electric Vehicle Conference.fi=vertaisarvioitu|en=peerReviewed

EV-observing distribution system management considering strategic VPPs and active & reactive power markets

The growing deployment of new flexible resources, renewable energy resources (RES), and Electric Vehicles (EV) in the distribution system necessitates new methods to manage the distribution system operation optimally. In this regard, our paper, by deploying the concept of Virtual Power Plants (VPPs) as the aggregation of multiple agents and local power markets that are known as important tools for future power systems presents a management framework for the distribution systems with high penetration of EVs. To this end, the interaction of the DSO and VPPs is studied based on their strategic behaviour through the local active and reactive power markets. This way, a bilevel optimization approach is proposed where the DSO aims to minimize its operational cost by setting the operation point of its own facilities and determining the hourly active and reactive power prices for VPPs considering the distribution system congestion in the upper level. At the lower level, VPPs try to minimize their cost by scheduling their assets based on the local active and reactive power prices set by the DSO. The results show how nodal pricing in local markets could improve the distribution system operation. In addition, it is indicated that Reactive Power Support (RPS) from VPP-owned EVPLs can decrease the VPPs’ cost by gaining profit in the reactive power market and facilitating their participation in the active power market.© 2024 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).fi=vertaisarvioitu|en=peerReviewed

Uncertainty-observed virtual battery model for an electric vehicle parking lot enabling charger-sharing modelling

With the increase in the penetration of electric vehicles (EVs), there is a substantial need for a proper solution to meet the EVs’ charging demand. Due to the high investment cost of charging stations, the efficient operation of EV chargers is crucial. In this regard, in this paper, charger-sharing charging has been proposed to charge multiple EVs with a single EV charger. However, the existing models cannot model uncertain EV parking lots (EVPLs) with charger-sharing charging. In addition, most presented methods for uncertainty modelling of EVPLs are hard to implement in planning and large-scale system-level studies due to their complicated process and high computational burden. Therefore, in this paper, a virtual battery model has been proposed to model an EVPL enabling the charger-sharing charging modelling considering the uncertainty of arrival and departure. Our proposed approach models the EVPL as a battery with time-variant parameters obtained from EVs’ arrival and departure patterns. The proposed virtual battery model has been validated by comparing its performance on day-ahead (DA) and real-time (RT) power market participation of a 24-bus distribution system owning 12 EVPLs with the scenario-based method. The results show that its performance is similar to scenario-based uncertainty modelling while its computational burden is around 2.24% of the scenario-based model. In addition, the results indicate how by employing our proposed charging-sharing charging, EVPLs can dramatically increase their profit as a result of increasing the number of hosted EVs. In this context, a sufficiently high charging tariff motivates the EVPL owner to accommodate a substantial number of EVs. With only 200 EV chargers, the EVPL can host approximately 3200 EVs, given the characteristics of EVs and EV chargers outlined in the case study section. In contrast, the exclusive charger approach allows only 200 EVs to enter the parking facility and undergo charging.© 2024 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).fi=vertaisarvioitu|en=peerReviewed

Two-Layer Game-Based Framework for Local Energy Flexibility Trading

A new configuration is required to model the behavior of customers, aggregators, the distribution system operator (DSO), and their interactions due to the active participation of customers in the local flexibility market. To this end, we propose a two-layer game-based framework that models agents’ behavior and their interactions. Thus, firstly, at the inner layer, customers and aggregators set their decision variables considering the decisions of each other performing an iterative game. After the inner layer game concludes, in the outer layer, the DSO determines its decision variable according to the decision of aggregators and customers. If the convergence condition is satisfied, the game of the outer layer concludes. Otherwise, there is another inner game and subsequent outer game until the satisfaction of convergence condition. Therefor, customers, aggregators, and the DSO have similar decision-making power. Since all of them can make their own decisions and modify them according to others’ decisions. To study our model, we consider three scenarios with different levels of freedom while decision-making for customers that is resulted from different levels of limitation for arbitrage avoidance. Our results illustrate that our iterative approach is converged after few iterations in both the inner and the outer layer. Moreover, customers who have a contract with the same aggregator behave similarly. Furthermore, aggregators benefit from customers’ freedom, while it is very destructive for the DSO and increases its objective function.©2022 Authors. Published by IEEE. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License. For more information, see https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/fi=vertaisarvioitu|en=peerReviewed

Iterative Game Approach for Modeling the Behavior of Agents in a Competitive Flexibility Trading

The potential of end-users to modify their consumption pattern makes them an interesting resource for providing energy flexibility in energy communities. Thus, active end-users require sufficient incentives and automated trading and management schemes. In order to enable increased small-scale end-users participation for flexibility service provision, a new design for flexibility trading is required to model the behavior of different agents and their interactions in energy communities. The novelty of our work lies in proposing an iterative game-based approach in which all agents – consisting of the distribution system operator (DSO), aggregators, and customers– can determine their decision variables to optimize their own objective functions and interact with others to modify their decisions according to others’ decisions. In addition, three scenarios are considered to study the effects of agents’ freedom while setting their decision variables (by removing one of their constraints in their corresponding decision-making problem). Moreover, the impact of the presence of interruptible loads in comparison with shiftable loads is investigated in this paper. According to the simulation results, it is found that in the scenario where end-users have fewer constraints, in presence of interruptible loads, end-users gain greater income compared to the absence of interruptible loads.2021 CCBY - IEEE is not the copyright holder of this material. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License. For more information, see https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/The work of Amin Shokri Gazafroudi was supported by the CoNDyNet2 Project funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research under Grant 03EK3055E.fi=vertaisarvioitu|en=peerReviewed

Iterative Game Approach for Modeling the Behavior of Agents in a Competitive Flexibility Trading

The potential of end-users to modify their consumption pattern makes them an interesting resource for providing energy flexibility in energy communities. Thus, active end-users require sufficient incentives and automated trading and management schemes. In order to enable increased small-scale end-users participation for flexibility service provision, a new design for flexibility trading is required to model the behavior of different agents and their interactions in energy communities. The novelty of our work lies in proposing an iterative game-based approach in which all agents – consisting of the distribution system operator (DSO), aggregators, and customers– can determine their decision variables to optimize their own objective functions and interact with others to modify their decisions according to others’ decisions. In addition, three scenarios are considered to study the effects of agents’ freedom while setting their decision variables (by removing one of their constraints in their corresponding decision-making problem). Moreover, the impact of the presence of interruptible loads in comparison with shiftable loads is investigated in this paper. According to the simulation results, it is found that in the scenario where end-users have fewer constraints, in presence of interruptible loads, end-users gain greater income compared to the absence of interruptible loads

Impact of Voltage Violation Penalty Cost on Distribution System Operation Considering Electric Vehicle

In the future, the widespread adoption of electric vehicle parking lots (EVPLs) may introduce operational challenges like voltage limit violations in distribution networks. However, EVPLs can potentially relieve these voltage limit violations by acting as flexible loads and providing reactive power support. In this paper, the impact of EVPLs on the optimal operation of the distribution network is investigated with a focus on their potential capability for reactive power support in a scenario that the distribution system operator (DSO) is committed to pay a penalty cost to customers if voltage limits are violated. Our results show that flexible charging of Electric Vehicles (EVs) and reactive power support from EVPLs, especially in the case where there exists a penalty cost for voltage violation, has a major impact on reducing the system cost. It can also pave the way for deploying more generation from distributed generation (DG) and renewable energy sources (RES) as well as reducing the voltage violation penalty costs.©2023 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other uses, in any current or future media, including reprinting/republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works, for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted component of this work in other works.fi=vertaisarvioitu|en=peerReviewed

An iterative auction-based method for multi energy trading in a microgrid considering renewable energy uncertainties

Due to the significant strides made in renewable energy generating units, they are now an appealing choice for supplying energy with various benefits. Furthermore, the aggregation of different energy generators and resources and the rise of energy conversion facilities, like combined heat and power (CHP), have paved the way for a new category of multi-energy prosumers. This research presents an innovative model for a local energy market structure consisting of an aggregator, prosumers, electricity, gas, and heat utility grids, and consumers. The interplay between these entities is handled as an auction model with proposed bidding strategies in which each player participates to maximize their own objective function. The numerical analysis reveals the impact of the pricing strategy on the prosumers' willingness to provide more energy during peak demand periods. Furthermore, the study highlights the potential for mutually beneficial collaborations between prosumers, which leads to reduced energy costs.©2024 Elsevier. This manuscript version is made available under the Creative Commons Attribution–NonCommercial–NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY–NC–ND 4.0) license, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/fi=vertaisarvioitu|en=peerReviewed

Local Flexibility Markets and Business Models

Current energy systems are experiencing a transformation led by incentives to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and increase the share of renewable energy sources (RES). This way, the integration of RES into energy systems is one of core issues. However, only depending on grid investments to deal with increasing loads and integration of RES is not the way to tackle this issue, because it would be too costly. Flexibility is defined as the change of energy generation or consumption patterns in response to a specific signal. This flexibility is then offered as a service to support actors in the energy system. Local flexibility markets are identified as platforms that coordinate and provide flexible assets. This chapter aims to provide an overview of local flexibility markets and their business models. This chapter analyzes the proposed local flexibility market designs in Europe, and discusses on their drawbacks and barriers, and how they can be improved.©2023 Springer. This is a post-peer-review, pre-copyedit version of an article published in Trading in Local Energy Markets and Energy Communities: Concepts, Structures and Technologies. The final authenticated version is available online at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-21402-8fi=vertaisarvioitu|en=peerReviewed