Microgrid and Transportation Electrification: A Review

An increasing concern over environmental impacts of fossil fuels and sustainability of energy resources is leading to significant changes in the electric power and transportation systems. Decentralized power generation and transportation electrification, in particular, are emerging as some of the most effective and promising tools in addressing these concerns. In this article, we conduct a integrated review of microgrid and transportation electrification to emphasize their inevitable interdependency in future developments. We summarize control strategies for microgrid and electric vehicle (EV) technology and discuss the challenges arising from the introduction of EVs into electric grid systems. We also analyze the current electric power market. To improve the grid's efficiency, we study the possibility of EVs performing vehicle-to-grid (V2G) service in order to entirely or partially replace some inefficient components of the current power market. Finally, two future research topics are proposed. First, a smart plug-and-play control approach for the integration of EVs into microgrids is described. Second, an adaptive charging strategy is proposed for the use in microgrids. This could mostly alleviate the stress to medium voltage distribution transformer of a region with a large EV population, without compromising the charging performance and EV owner's interests.