A simulation environment for vehicle-to-grid integration studies

The use of computers to simulate real-world phenomena has been a primary driver for computing applications. We have developed a simulation platform for evaluating novel approaches to smart power grids and energy management. Originally conceived to address issues of vehicle-to-grid (V2G) integration, the platform is expanded to other kinds of electric loads. We describe our motivations for undertaking the development of a special-purpose simulation platform, the simulation model, and how parallel hardware is exploited in a classical event-driven simulation set up. Specific support for control approaches of random processes is described and some simulation results are presented.