Energy Management Strategy of a Nanogrid Parking for Electric Vehicles

Samenvatting

With the increasing amount of electric vehicles (EVs) on the European roads and the inextricably linked charging infrastructure, the utility grid will soon become overloaded. A possible solution to reduce the stress on the grid is to use renewable energy resources (RERs) to charge EVs. Their intermittent nature however requires the need for an energy storage system (ESS), like a battery pack, to ensure that the EV charging demand can be satisfied. This configuration, whether or not with a utility grid connection, is called a nanogrid. To control the power flow between the different components of the nanogrid, an energy management strategy (EMS) is needed. This thesis presents the development and analysis of such an EMS. The proposed EMS aims to control the power flow between the components under different environmental conditions with the objective to satisfy the load demand at all time. The latter requires that the components are optimally sized. This is done by a genetic algorithm minimising a cost function including the total cost over the entire lifetime of the nanogrid. The results proved the correct functioning of the EMS and sizing algorithm. Furthermore it was found that the payback time of the nanogrid was longer than its lifetime, making it not ready yet to be brought on the market. Nonetheless, its future potential is indisputable, which makes it a field where further research is definitely needed.

Datum prijs	5 sep. 2018
Originele taal	English