Electric Vehicle Charging Management Using Auction Mechanism for Reducing PV Curtailment in Distribution Systems

This paper proposes an electric vehicle (EV) charging management scheme for effective utilization of photovoltaic (PV) power based on an auction mechanism. The proposed scheme coordinates an amount of self-consumption of PV output by shifting the charging period of customers' EVs, and it reduces PV curtailment caused by voltage rise in low-voltage distribution systems (LVDSs). The auction mechanism is introduced in order to assure both the equity of benefit in each customer and the autonomy that enables customers to voluntarily participate in the EV charging management scheme. The authors perform numerical simulations based on a Japanese distribution system model and evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed scheme. The results show that our proposed scheme reduces the residential operation cost and the PV curtailment in LVDSs without an enhanced communication network even taking into consideration the effects of forecasting errors of electricity demand and PV output, and unexpected disconnection condition of several EVs.