Economic Microgrid Planning Algorithm with Electric Vehicle Charging Demands

Two of the most important technologies for future power systems to reduce greenhouse gas are electric vehicles (EVs) and renewable generation. When EVs become more common, the overall demand of electricity will significantly increase because EVs consume a large amount of electricity. Also, a daily load curve with EVs heavily depends on how much electricity EVs consume and when electricity is consumed. The microgrid is an important technology to promote renewable generation, and the increased demand and changed load curve should be considered in the microgrid planning stage to install robust and economical microgrids. In this paper, we propose an algorithm for microgrid planning with EV charging demand to find the most economical configuration through which to maximally utilize renewable generation. The algorithm uses a renewable generation-following EV charging scheme and HOMER. Through simulations, it is shown that the microgrid constructed by the proposed algorithm reduces the investment cost and CO2 emission.