Coordinated PV Power Generation: IIT Guwahati’s Novelty For EV Charging

A team of researchers from the Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati have a novel idea about optimal power generation and EV charging station free from the intermittent solar energy determined by cycle of weather. Issued by IIT Guwahati on July 20, a press release claimed that the researchers had developed an optimised control schemes that could enable coordinated operation of photovoltaic (PV) power generation and electric vehicle (EV) charging stations. The novelty lies in PV and EV inverters working in coordination with other Voltage Regulating Devices (VRD) to regulate the system voltages.

The team of researchers comprised Dr Sanjib Ganguly, Associate Professor, Department of Electronics and Electrical Engineering (EEE), IIT Guwahati, along with research scholar Arunima Dutta and colleague Dr Chandan Kumar. The Journal of Sustainable Energy, Grids and Networks, recently published the acclaimed research.

Dr Sanjib Ganguly has been quoted as saying, “We have developed an optimization-based coordinated voltage control approach of power distribution networks to mitigate the overvoltage and under-voltage problems due to high PV generation and high EV charging, respectively.”

According to the press release, an EV can be more sustainable if the power needed to charge these vehicles is also sourced from renewable energy such as solar energy. But because solar energy is intermittent, dependent on the weather cycle, it causes voltage fluctuation in power distribution networks. To add, EV charging is not well coordinated currently leading to under-voltage or over voltage of the distribution networks, consequently leading to efficiency losses.

The researchers have therefore hit upon a Coordinated Control Approach (CCA) for power distribution system in order to not only keep constant the supply of solar energy but also derive maximum benefits from renewable power generation and electric vehicle power sourcing. The novelty factor here is that PV and EV inverters work in coordination with other Voltage Regulating Devices (VRD) in order to regulate the system voltages.

The CCA is a three-stage model predictive control (MPC) approach to schedule charging of EVs and other devices. The three stages entail coordinating the volt-var devices in two different time scales; reception of the reactive power set points by the local controller, and EV charge scheduling in accordance with the balance between the operating cost and customer satisfaction, the release said.