Theses and Dissertations Collection

This thesis builds on and improves a Plugin Electric Vehicle (PEV) charging control strategy developed for a third-party aggregator. This charging control strategy was developed with an emphasis on shifting residential PEV charging load from peak to off-peak hours. When the initial control strategy was designed the most important design criteria was scalability and computational efficiency. It is very important to be able to control the charging of a very large number of PEVs, in a very small amount of time using an ordinary PC. After the control strategy was successfully implemented and demonstrated the author recognized the need for further refinement of the control strategy. The original control strategy is not able to limit or control the amount of PEV charge cycling. PEV charge cycling occurs when one PEV stops charging and another PEV starts charging in its place. Limited charge cycling can be a beneficial mechanism to start charging PEVs that need to start charging, but excessive charge cycling may contribute to grid problems. The amount of charge cycling that is allowed is a decision that must consider these tradeoffs. This thesis modifies the original control strategy to be able to limit, and control the amount of PEV charge cycling.