Coordinating Vehicle-to-Grid and Distributed Energy Resources in Multi-Dwelling Developments: A Real-Time Gateway Control Framework

This study proposes a three-layer gateway control framework for a behind-the-meter virtual power plant (VPP) comprising vehicle-to-grid (V2G)-capable electric vehicle (EV) chargers, battery energy storage systems (BESS), and rooftop photovoltaic (PV) generation in multi-dwelling residential developments, creating a sustainable future through maximising distributed energy resource (DER) utilisation. In particular, the first layer performs day-ahead scheduling to determine the hourly grid import baseline and frequency regulation ancillary service capacity for the following day. In the second layer, real-time regulation dispatch is performed by following the dynamic regulation signal from the grid operator, wherein V2G-capable EVs are coordinated alongside BESS as active demand-side participants in frequency regulation ancillary services, enabling the aggregated behind-the-meter fleet to respond to regulation signals in real time. The third layer performs per-minute three-phase load balancing to maintain network power quality compliance across the multi-dwelling site. The overall goal is to coordinate distributed energy resources behind a single network connection point to simultaneously reduce peak demand, maximise renewable self-consumption, and provide demand-side frequency regulation as a dispatchable VPP asset.