Coupling Electric Vehicles and Power Grid through Charging-In-Motion and Connected Vehicle Technology

A traffic-assignment-based framework is proposed to model the coupling of transportation network and power grid for analyzing impacts of energy demand from electric vehicles on the operation of power distribution. Although the reverse can be investigated with the proposed framework as well, electricity flowing from a power grid to electric vehicles is the focus of this paper. Major variables in transportation network (including link flows) and power grid (including electricity transmitted) are introduced for the coupling. Roles of charging-in-motion technology and connected vehicle technology have been identified in the framework of supernetwork. A linkage (i.e. individual energy demand) between the two networks is defined to construct the supernetwork. To determine equilibrium of the supernetwork can also answer how many drivers are going to use the charging-in-motion services, in which locations, and at what time frame. An optimal operation plan of power distribution will be decided along the determination simultaneously by which we have a picture about what level of power demand from the grid is expected in locations during an analyzed period. Caveat of the framework and possible applications have also been discussed.