Optimal Utilization of Charging Resources of Fast Charging Station with Opportunistic Electric Vehicle Users

Abstract

The key challenge with the rapid proliferation of electric vehicles (EVs) is to optimally manage the available energy charging resources at EV fast-charging stations (FCSs). Furthermore, the rapid deployment of fast-charging stations provides a viable solution to the potential driving range anxiety and charging autonomy. Costly grid reinforcements due to extra load caused by fast charging can be omitted using a dedicated energy storage and/or renewable energy system at the FCS. The energy supply and fixed number of EV supply equipment (EVSE) are considered as the limited charging resources of FCS. Amidst various uncertainties associated with the EV charging process, how to optimally utilize limited charging resources with opportunistic ultra-fast charging EV users (UEVs) is studied in this work. This work proposes resource allocation and charging coordination strategies that facilitate UEVs to dynamically exploit these limited charging resources with defined liabilities when pre-scheduled users (SEVs) do not occupy them to utilize limited charging resources maximally. Moreover, the proposed dynamic charging coordination strategies are analyzed with a Monte Carlo simulation (MCS). The presented numerical results reveal that the major drawbacks of under-utilization of limited charging resources by SEVs can be significantly improved through dynamic charging resource allocation and coordination along with UEVs. With the proposed charging coordination strategies in this study, the maximum charging resource utilization of considered FCS with 10 EVSE has been improved to 90%, which bounds to 78% only with SEVs.