Integration of plug-in electric vehicles into microgrids as energy and reactive power providers in market environment

The concept of electricity markets in the deregulated environment generally refers to energy market and reactive power market is not paid attention as much as it deserves to. However, reactive power plays an important role in distribution networks to improve network conditions such as voltage profile improvement and loss reduction. Plug-in electric vehicles (PEVs) are mobile sources of active and reactive power, capable of being participated in energy market, and also in reactive power market without battery degradation. Active and reactive powers are coupled through the ac power flow equations and branch loading limits, as well as PEVs and synchronous generators capability curves. This paper presents a coupled energy and reactive power market in the presence of PEVs. The objective function is threefold, namely offers cost (for energy market), total payment function (for reactive power market), and lost opportunity cost, all to be minimized. The effectiveness of the proposed coupled energy and reactive power market is studied based on a 134-node microgrid with and without PEV participation.