The wide-scale electrification of the transportation sector won't be possible without careful planning and coordination with the power grid and the companies that manage its operation. If left unmanaged, the uncoordinated charging of EVs at increased levels of penetration will amplify existing peak loads, potentially outstripping the grid’s current capacity to meet demand. In this talk, I’ll present findings from the OptimizEV Project--a real-world pilot study in Upstate New York exploring a novel approach to coordinated residential EV charging. As one of its primary objectives, the OptimizEV platform seeks to harness the latent flexibility in EV charging by offering EV owners monetary incentives to delay the time required to charge their EVs. Each time an EV owner initiates a charging session, they can specify how long they intend to leave their vehicle plugged in by selecting from a "menu of deadlines" that offers lower electricity prices the longer they’re willing to delay the time required to charge their car. Given a collection of active charging requests, a smart charging system dynamically optimizes the power being drawn by every EV in real time to minimize their collective strain on the grid, while ensuring that every customer’s car is fully charged by its deadline. Customers get their energy when they need it and the smart charging system can optimally coordinate the delivery of that energy to avoid spikes in demand. I’ll describe important lessons learned from the OptimizEV Project related to customer behavior, EV charging characteristics, and transportation patterns. Directions for future research will also be discussed.

Biography: Eilyan Bitar is an Associate Professor in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Cornell University. His current research is focused on the optimization, control, and economics of sustainable electric power and transportation systems. He received his BS (2006) and PhD (2011) from UC Berkeley. Prior to joining Cornell in 2012, he spent one year as a Postdoctoral Fellow at the California Institute of Technology and UC Berkeley. He is a recipient of the NSF Faculty Early Career Development Award (CAREER), the David D. Croll Sesquicentennial Faculty Fellowship, the John and Janet McMurtry Fellowship, the John G. Maurer Fellowship, and the Robert F. Steidel Jr. Fellowship.