Exploring the Use of Autonomous Unmanned Vehicles for Supporting Power Grid Operations

TL;DR

This paper investigates how autonomous unmanned vehicles with built-in batteries can be integrated into power grid operations to enhance efficiency and support grid stability through optimized routing and real-time management.

Contribution

It introduces a novel optimization-based method for integrating autonomous vehicles as mobile energy storage units into power grid operations.

Findings

The proposed algorithm effectively manages autonomous vehicles in real-time grid support.

Numerical studies demonstrate the scalability and validity of the approach.

Autonomous vehicles can significantly contribute to power grid stability and cost reduction.

Abstract

This paper explores the use of autonomous unmanned vehicles to support power grid operations. With built-in batteries and the capability to carry additional battery energy storage, the rising number of autonomous vehicles can represent a substantial amount of capacity that is currently underutilized in the power grid. Unlike traditional electric vehicles that require drivers, the operations of autonomous vehicles can be performed without human intervention. To guide idle vehicles to autonomously support power grids, we propose a tractable optimization-based method to effectively integrate these "mobile batteries" into grid operations. During real-time operations, the vehicles are strategically routed to target locations to maintain power balance and reduce operating costs. Numerical studies have confirmed both the validity and the scalability of the proposed algorithm to efficiently integrate autonomous vehicles into routine power system operations.