Charging Rate Optimization for Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicles in Smart Grid

This paper defines an optimization problem which intends to find a time-variant optimal charging rate for plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs). The main objective is to maximize the energy delivered to the PHEV fleet while considering the power grid and drivers' constraints. The decision variable is the charging rate at each 30 minutes while the constraints are the maximum generation capacity of the power grid, the maximum delay tolerance of the customers, and the charging rate boundaries. In order to solve the optimization problem, a simulation framework modeling the interactions between the power grid and drivers is designed. Finally, the optimization problem is applied to a region of the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) and the results are discussed.