Decentralized Charging Control of Electric Vehicles in Residential Distribution Networks

TL;DR

This paper presents a decentralized control scheme for EV charging that flattens demand profiles while respecting network constraints, using a novel optimization algorithm to ensure convergence and effectiveness.

Contribution

It introduces a new decentralized control method with a shrunken primal-dual subgradient algorithm for EV charging management in distribution networks.

Findings

The proposed algorithm converges under specified conditions.

The control scheme effectively achieves valley-filling.

It maintains network constraints during charging.

Abstract

Electric vehicle (EV) charging can negatively impact electric distribution networks by exceeding equipment thermal ratings and causing voltages to drop below standard ranges. In this paper, we develop a decentralized EV charging control scheme to achieve "valley-filling" (i.e., flattening demand profile during overnight charging), meanwhile meeting heterogeneous individual charging requirements and satisfying distribution network constraints. The formulated problem is an optimization problem with a non-separable objective function and strongly coupled inequality constraints. We propose a novel shrunken primal-dual subgradient (SPDS) algorithm to support the decentralized control scheme, derive conditions guaranteeing its convergence, and verify its efficacy and convergence with a representative distribution network model.