Summary

The European Commission policy highlights that one of the main objectives regarding to electrical energy is to reframe the electricity market in order to be more interconnected, get a greater responsiveness and allow a high penetration of decentralized renewable sources. Photovoltaic (PV) solar energy and electric vehicle (EV) can play an important role in this context. PV systems (PVSs) have proven to be mature, reliable and competitive technology in certain scenarios, laying down strong basics to increase their penetration in coming electric mix. In addition, the deployment of the EV, as a latest technology, presents a learning curve that will enable its competitiveness at short-medium term.

Residential sector PV self-consumption represents an optimal option from a technical and economic point of view, minimizing the PV impact on the network and reducing the electrical demand in a context of increasing prices. The deployment of the private EV requires the massive integration of charging stations into the grid. As the percentage of energy supplied to such stations increases by renewable energy, the objective of reducing CO2 emissions in this sector will be better achieved. Focusing on residential sector, both PV self-consumption and EV charging loads, by bidirectional charging station, represent the paradigm of distributed generation and consumption. In this context, smart management is welcome to optimize the use of PV energy in those dwellings that include EVs bidirectional charging load thanks to advanced storage systems. These storage systems allow a greater integration of PV and EV in the networks. Besides, the incorporation of such storage systems (hybrids) allows that the resulting microgrid (housing, EV, hybrid storage and PVS [hereafter PV+EV microgrid]) provides advanced network services (ancillary services). This advanced approach pursues a dual objective; on the one hand, to increase the economic competitiveness of proconsumer’s facilities with PVS and EV, on the other hand, to maintain the stability of the electrical power system under a massive PV and EV integration in residential sector, without compromising its stability.

This project aims to develop a smart management of this PV+EV microgrid that will handle the challenge of supporting multiple tasks. These tasks will involve an optimal energy management, on the basis of economic criteria and an optimal management of auxiliary service provision (primary and secondary frequency control and dynamic grid support). For this purpose, it will be necessary to research and develop new algorithms for estimating input variables, advanced models of microgrid components, new algorithms for energy and service provision management, new algorithms of control to guarantee power system stability. These algorithms of control will be necessarily conditioned by the knowledge of the impact of microgrids on the electrical system; impact assessment will require advanced simulation tools.

The smart management proposal of PV+EV microgrid concludes with the actual operation and evaluation of the built prototype in the project. This prototype will allow transfer the knowledge generated to society in general and particularly, to the industrial and business sector.