Engineers are moving steadily closer to realizing the ability to charge electric vehicles (EVs) wirelessly during driving cycles. In pursuit of this automotive ambition, a coupled transportation-power system framework for incorporating a wireless charging road system into the real-time electricity market has been proposed by Cornell University researchers.

Wireless charging roads equipped with energy storage systems are promising EV solutions due to advantages in time saving and reduced pressure on the existing power infrastructure. The research outlined in the journal Applied Energy details an optimization-based control strategy to manage the energy storage system in a cost-efficient manner.

Simulations demonstrate energy cost and power grid benefits of efficient energy storage system control. Two numerical examples show respective energy cost reductions of 2.61% and 15.34%. The time average of maximum and time average of standard deviation of locational marginal prices are reduced by 10.65% and 69.33% for the first numerical example and 5.11% and 34.73% for the second numerical example.

The proposed framework consists of hybrid traffic assignment, extended DC optimal power flow and controller modules. The hybrid traffic assignment calculates the traffic flow given specific trips across a road network composed of wireless charging lanes and normal traffic lanes. The extended DC optimal power flow determines the optimal electric energy flows between the generation resources, load centers and wireless charging roads in the given power grid. The control approach seeks to minimize the energy costs of wireless charging roads by efficiently managing the output of the energy storage system.