Joint Price and Power MPC for Peak Power Reduction at Workplace EV Charging Stations

Demand charge often constitutes a significant portion of electricity costs for commercial electric vehicle (EV) charging station operators. This paper explores control methods to reduce peak power consumption at workplace EV charging stations in a joint price and power optimization framework. We optimize a menu of price options to incentivize users to select controllable charging service. Using this framework, we propose a model predictive control approach to reduce both demand charge and overall operator costs. Through a Monte Carlo simulation, we find that our algorithm outperforms a state-of-the-art benchmark optimization strategy and can significantly reduce station operator costs.