For further information about this research program, please email ev@smartgrid.ucla.edu.

EVSmartPlug™
EVSmartplug™ is the smart electric receptacle for EV charging using the WINSmartEV™ network. EVSmartPlug™ and WINSmartEV™ are trademarks of UCLA SMERC.

Vehicle to Grid (V2G)
The Vehicle-to-Grid (V2G) research in UCLA SMERC is one of the important parts in EV integration. By enabling power stored in EVs feeding back to the grid, it allows bidirectional power flow between EVs and power grid. The objectives of V2G research in UCLA is to demonstrate the possibility of V2G on popular EVs, explore the maximum power of V2G on a single vehicle, while addressing challenges including quick response time, power sharing control and etc. The research in V2G will renovate a variety of applications such as reactive power compensation, voltage regulation and distributed storage, which strengthen the power grid and lead EV usage to an entirely new, smarter era.

Background
California constitutes a significant automotive market - a place where demanding and energy-conscious consumers come together with creative designers from Hollywood, resulting in an environment rich in ideas on automotive innovation. As a result, California is home to some of the most significant innovations in EVs including Tesla and Fisker. As these innovations come on line their integration into the smart grid of the future becomes the next big challenge. We are developing a scalable and robust architecture utilizing wireless and RF-monitoring and control technologies derived from our REWINS™ research called WINSmartGrid™ that allows smart vehicle and energy storage and consumption management for vehicles in home or in the office. As part of the challenging long-term research project, we are developing a series of demonstrations both at home and in the office. The first phase - developing an on-campus demonstration within UCLA - requires conducting research and demonstration on UCLA's internal electric vehicle (EV) fleet and charging stations at UCLA for its integration with our local utility's managed grid.

The objective of this project is to reduce energy cost and usage and to increase the stability of local power system by managing the charging operations of the EVs. This will be accomplished using the smart grid wireless system under development at UCLA called WINSmartGrid™.

In this project, EV usage information and electric grid status will be collected wirelessly to determine better efficient and economic charging operation of the EVs. Due to different grid stability/reliability, geographical location of the EVs and driving patterns of the EVs, effective management of charging and backfill operations may be used to lower electricity rates and flatten electric load curve. Each EV will be equipped with a handheld device to allow the driver to receive instructions or seek advice to better manage his/her EV's battery charging/backfill process.

For example, an alert can be issued to the driver when the battery capacity is below a threshold level. The alert can include a list of near-by charging station's location, distance, current and projected energy cost based on the time of the day and use an intelligent cloud-computing the driver the optimum course of action.

The batteries on the EVs when not in driving status can also be collectively used to serve as the energy storage which can backfill into the local electric grid to prevent power outage during peak demand. In this scenario, an alert is issued to the driver when a predicted instability in the grid is detected. The alert can instruct the driver to bring the vehicle to the appropriate charging station to serve as backfill battery.

Existing EVs and charging stations usage patterns will be studied to determine the appropriate sensors and wireless communication modules to be installed. Communication and alerting systems will be implemented by integrating WINSmartGridTM with our local utility's Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) and the Demand Respond project.

Major areas of this research/demonstration include:

• WinSmartGrid™ Technology - WinSmartGrid™ platform is used as the infrastructure to i) connect to EV electric power sensors, GPS chips, and other EV data and ii) control and utilize the wireless network for communication iii) allow data filtration, aggregation and messaging, and iv) provide a portal for data integration and decision making.
• Smart Energizing - the management of EV batteries' charging rate and extent of the charge backfill based on various data from grid stability, energy cost, vehicle location, battery status, driver's preference, and driving patterns.
• Grid Balancing - grid management and prediction of peak and off-peak hours to store excess capacity, or to handle demands for large numbers of EVs charging efficient, economically and safely.
• UCLA-WINRFID™ Technology - including RFID tags/readers on the EVs and charging stations to track and identify usage and preference information of each EV. Automatic charge/discharge intelligence stored within smart RFID tags managed by UCLA-WINRFID Technology.
• Cyber Security - study and integration of cyber security technologies for secure wireless communication between battery and infrastructure or between two batteries, as part of the smart grid architecture.

The demonstration and results of this project will provide vast amounts of data, information and knowledge to allow an effective and large scale roll-out of grid-integrated EVs across the region and in the country.