Microgrid Service Restoration: The Role of Plugged-in Electric Vehicles

The development of the microgrid (MG) concept endows distribution networks with increased reliability and resilience and offers an adequate management and control solution for massive deployment of microgeneration and electric vehicles (EVs). Within an MG, local generation can be exploited to launch a local restoration procedure following a blackout. EVs are flexible resources that can also be actively included in the restoration procedure, thus contributing to the improvement of MG operating conditions. The feasibility of MG service restoration, including the active participation of EVs, is demonstrated in this article through extensive numerical simulation and experimentation in a laboratorial setup.