Bilevel optimal coordination of active distribution network and charging stations considering EV drivers' willingness

With the popularity of electric vehicles (EVs) in urban areas, the effective utilization of their charging flexibility in active distribution networks (ADNs) has drawn wide attentions. This paper proposes a bilevel model for the collaborative operation of ADNs with multiple charging stations (CSs) considering EV drivers' willingness. In the upper level, the distribution system operator (DSO) minimizes the total operational cost of ADNs and sets the optimal energy and reserve prices to trade with CSs under loads and market uncertainties. In the lower level, the aggregated model of EVs including drivers' response willingness is firstly established. Then, CSs minimize their own costs by adjusting bidding quantities and setting optimal incentive prices for EV drivers. Further, the developed bilevel model considering responsivities of EV drivers and various uncertainties is transformed into a tractable single level problem via the deterministic reformulation, Karush-Kuhn–Tucker (KKT) conditions and linearization method. Finally, numerical studies show that the proposed method can facilitate the DSO, CSs, EV drivers to reduce 3.7%, 20%, 9.6% total costs on average and improve the network security of ADNs under various uncertainties. Moreover, the scalability of the proposed approach is verified in the IEEE 123-bus DN with the computation time less than 600 s, which satisfies the computational efficiency requirement for the ADN day-ahead optimal scheduling. •A bi-layer approach is proposed for the optimal coordinated operation.•The EV drivers' willingness to participate in DR program is modeled and embedded.•The tractable reformulation of the proposed bilevel model is developed.•The scheduling potentials of EVs are verified.•The effectiveness, stability and scalability of the proposed model are validated.