Particle swarm optimisation for scheduling electric vehicles with microgrids

The explosion in the number of electric vehicles (EVs) has had a significant impact on the energy systems and structures of cities. Large-scale EVs inevitably increase the load on the grid, while uncoordinated vehicle to Grid (V2G) technologies pose challenges to the stability and security of the grid. This paper introduces a global intelligent method to find optimal cooperation charging/discharging strategies for EVs to minimize the operation cost. EVs aggregates co-ordinate the energy information and needs of all EVs and use real-time pricing based on micro-grid loads to influence EV charge-discharge behavior. Particle swarm optimization (PSO) is introduced to solve the EV scheduling problem. This study also discusses the negative impact on the energy system of different strategies for charging EVs. Simulation shows that this smart charging strategy and improved PSO can effectively decrease the operation cost of EVs and reduce the load for each micro-grid.