Analysis of electric vehicle charging behavior in low-voltage grids using a receding horizon control strategy

Electric vehicles (EV) are becoming increasingly popular due to the need for a greater contribution of the transport sector to climate protection. Their integration into the system, however, poses both challenges and opportunities. This paper takes a closer look at the behavior of EVs in a setting influenced by electricity market prices and network restrictions. Our focus is a market model that includes network constraints in order to derive a market driven control strategy for EVs that also observes all grid constraints. A price signal from the market is used to control the charging behavior with a receding horizon approach and considering network restrictions. A case study examines the possible effects of the control strategy on the system. The main result is that EVs are very flexible in shifting their demand for the considered low-voltage grid. However, high photovoltaics feed-in, especially in the summer months, can lead to high network loads that EVs cannot always completely compensate.