Cost-effective optimal scheduling of PHEV integrated microgrid with load curve restructuring strategies

Demand Side Management (DSM) is a well-recognized concept that seeks to optimize the efficiency and effectiveness of a distribution system. DSM encompasses load shifting and load curtailment strategies, both designed to mitigate the system's peak demand. The former is an optimization-based method that repositions the elastic loads to hours with low tariff rates, thereby filling the gaps and reducing the peak. The latter offers incentives to consumers to encourage their participation and reduce energy consumption during periods of high demand. In order to minimize the overall operating cost, the unique work done in this study intends to analyze ten exhaustive cases on a low voltage (LV) microgrid (MG) system and optimally schedule the distributed energy resources (DERs). The complexity of the work is further enhanced by the inclusion of plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV) which integrates Grid to Vehicle (G2V) and Vehicle to Grid (V2G) technologies to charge and discharge itself using the utility assigned electricity market price. The work used the Differential Evolution (DE) method as an optimisation framework. The ten exhaustive scenarios were analyzed to acknowledge the impact of the involvement and pricing of the grid, PHEV and DSM strategies mentioned above. Numerical study confirms that the load shifting policy and the type of load curtailing policy which rewarded the customer based on their willingness to curtail loads along with delivering benefit to the DISCOM were more cost-effective compared to the rest of the cases. Furthermore, it was also noted that time of usage (TOU) based electricity pricing was economical for entities which participated in bidirectional flow of power like grid and PHEV.