EV Allocation and Charging within Parking Lots Using a Locational Marginal Pricing Mechanism

Electrifying parking lots (PLs) is becoming increasingly challenging as the number of electric vehicle (EV) chargers operating within PLs increases, putting a strain on the internal electricity grid. Reinforcing the local grid can be an expensive solution. Therefore, an alternative approach is to design a mechanism that optimizes the distribution of incoming EVs along the PL infrastructure, minimizing operating costs for the PL owner and the charging costs for EV users. This paper proposes a user-aware pricing mechanism for EV charging in PLs based on locational marginal prices (LMPs), which consists of a base tariff and a location-dependent tariff. A mixed-integer second-order programming model is developed to determine the optimal charging spot for each EV upon arrival at the PL. Results show that the proposed LMP-based allocation mechanism distributes the strain more evenly throughout the local grid, increasing the EV hosting capacity of the PL, while minimizing charging costs for users. Compared to a random allocation approach, the proposed mechanism resulted in 30.9% less energy not served and 17.5% lower charging costs.