Impact studies of electric vehicles and behind-the-meter photovoltaic generation in electric power distribution networks based on artificial intelligence

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The adoption of Electric Vehicles (EVs) and Photovoltaic (PV) generation at households is rapidly and massively increasing in the short term. Therefore, utilities are facing the challenge of efficiently manage these resources, to help mitigate the undesirable side effects of their operation when connected to power grids. Existing approaches to solve these issues rely on accurate predictions of the behavior of EVs and PVs (as part of Distributed Energy Resources or DERs), detailed knowledge of customers, and grid infrastructure, all of which complicate their effective deployment. Thus, the main objective of this project is to develop data-driven Artificial Intelligence (AI) based tools that remove the need of detailed modeling of certain parts of the distribution networks, and also address the issue of accurate forecasts. These tools, which will be developed to control DERs in distribution grids, will allow studying the impact of DERs and coordinating their operation to provide demand response services on utilities' networks. The results of these studies will provide insights for utility operators on more efficient infrastructure upgrades, thus reducing investment costs, and allow planning and allocation of existing resources, as well as expand and enhance the products and services that BlueWave-ai provides to utilities. The research will be carried out through computational simulations and BluWave-ai's existing distributed optimization platform; the developed models will be validated using historical and network data from Hydro Ottawa.