Decision Support for Electric Vehicle Charging

Many hopes lie on the introduction of electric vehicles (EV): reduction of transportation-related emissions, reduced dependence on oil imports, and improved integration of renewable energy sources. Meeting these goals will require a significant number of EVs on the streets and it will also require intelligent charging coordination. Through dynamic rates or local energy trading smart grids incentivize load flexibility required for taking advantage of renewable generation availability. For EVs to respond to these incentives intelligent charging protocols are required. These protocols should aim to minimize electricity costs and emissions while simultaneously securing customers’ driving requirements. We describe and characterize the relevant problems and solution concepts on how to achieve smart charging behavior. Optimal smart charging concepts are not directly applicable for practical DSS. To address this shortcoming we develop relaxed and heuristic optimization approaches. We evaluate these solutions approaches using simulations based on empirical mobility and electricity price data.