Evaluating grid-interactive electric bus operation and demand response with load management tariff

Electric Vehicles are expected to play a vital role in the transition of smart energy systems. Lots of recent research has explored numerous underlying mechanisms to achieve the synergetic interactions in the electricity balancing process. In this paper, the grid-interactive operation of electric buses is first time integrated within a dynamic market frame using the Distribution Locational Marginal Price algorithm for load congestion management. Since the defined problem correlates the opportunity charging flexibility with the bus mobility over a network, the tempo-spatial distribution of energy needs can be reflected in the dynamic of service planning. The interactions between bus operators and suppliers are quantitatively modelled by a bi-level optimisation process to represent the electric bus service planning and electricity market clearing separately. The effectiveness of the proposed load management has been demonstrated using data collected from an integrated real-world bus network. Experiments show that engagement of electric bus charging load in demand response is helpful to alleviate the network congestion and to reduce the power loss by 7.2% in the distribution network. However, alleviated charging loads have exhibited counter-intuitive capability for load shifting. The restricted electric bus operational requirements leads to a 8.17% loss of charging demand, while the reliance on large batteries has increased by 10.57%. However, the sensitivity analysis also shows that as the battery cost declines, the such discourage implications on grid-interactive electric bus operation will decrease once the battery cost below 190/kWh. The optimal grid-ebus integration have to consider the trade-off between range add-up, reduced battery cost and additional benefits.