A high penetration of Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicles (PHEVs) can lead to stress and overload in distribution systems when uncoordinated charging is considered. Thus, coordination mechanisms to manage PHEV charging during peak periods are needed. This paper evaluates the impact of PHEVs in the residential distribution grid and proposes a coordination mechanism based on heuristic rules as a load shaping tool. The impact of the mechanism on user convenience is also studied, and the benefits of having a renewable generation system is examined. Results show that our coordination mechanism is able to prevent the overloading of the distribution transformer. Further, it has been found that the performance of the renewable system (e.g., renewable fraction and renewable cost ratio) depend on many factors such as weather, region, equipment specification, and user preference.

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In addition to the petroleum-economic concerns, there are environmental issues to consider. According to the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the US transport sector emitted 2,098 million metric tons of greenhouse gases (GHG) (95% of GHG is CO 2) in 2006, see Figure 2. This has a significant impact in the global context since it accounts for 33% of the global transportation CO 2 emissions and 7-8% of global total GHG emissions. The majority of emissions within the transport sector are produced by light weight vehicles (cars, SUVs, and pickups) representing 58.7% out of the total. Thus reducing GHG emissions in these vehicles would significantly contribute to the environment at a global level. These two arguments present a clear motivation to introduce Electrical Vehicles (EVs) and to promote their adoption among drivers. EVs, in the form of Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicles (PHEVs) or Battery Electric Vehicles (BEVs), offer significant benefits in improving energy efficiency, reducing emissions of pollutant and greenhouse

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