© 2015 T. T. Lie et al., licensee De Gruyter Open. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 License. Open Eng. 2015; 5:166ś178 Research Article Open Access T. T. Lie, Xiuli Liang*, and M. H. Haque A Cost-Efective Electric Vehicle Charging Method Designed For Residential Homes with Renewable Energy Abstract: Most of the electrical infrastructure in use around the world today is decades old, and may be ill- suited to widespread proliferation of personal Electric Ve- hicles (EVs) whose charging requirements will place in- creasing strain on grid demand. In order to reduce the pressure on the grid and taking benefts ofof peak charg- ing, this paper presents a smart and cost efective EV charging methodology for residential homes equipped with renewable energy resources such as Photovoltaic (PV) panels and battery. The proposed method ensures slower battery degradation and prevents overcharging. The per- formance of the proposed algorithm is verifed by conduct- ing simulation studies utilizing running data of Nissan Al- tra. From the simulation study results, the algorithm is shown to be efective and feasible which minimizes not only the charging cost but also can shift the charging time from peak value to of-peak time. Keywords: Electric Vehicles (EVs), EV Charging, Photo- voltaic (PV) DOI 10.1515/eng-2015-0022 Received October 16, 2014; accepted February 23, 2015 1 Introduction The rising demand on fnite energy sources, coupled with an increasing environmental awareness in the public con- sciousness means that Electric Vehicles may see wide scale proliferation in the near future. Similarly, the uptake of T. T. Lie: Dept. Electrical and Electronic Engineering Auck- land University of Technology Auckland, New Zealand, E-mail: tek.lie@aut.ac.nz *Corresponding Author: Xiuli Liang: Dept. Electrical and Elec- tronic Engineering Auckland University of Technology Auckland, New Zealand M. H. Haque: School of Engineering University of South Australia Adelaide, Australia Photovoltaic (PV) energy sources in residential homes is driven by similar forces, and is likely to become increas- ingly common. Battery Electric Vehicles (BEVs) and Plu- gin Hybrid Electric Vehicles (collectively referred to as EVs in this paper) play an important role in reducing green- house gas emissions and the dependence on oil. However at this time, EVs have relatively low penetration into the domestic vehicle feet. This is in part due to the high cost and limited lifetime of batteries, the lifecycles of which are impacted by charging/discharging rate, temperature changes, and chemical degradation over time. Currently, the most commonly utilized charging method is ‘plug in and charge’, which leaves the battery without reasonable protection. Overcharging a lithium battery will cause over- heating problems that have an impact on the battery’s lifespan or may even explode. There is a clear need for a method that can reduce charg- ing cost and improving the electrical efciency as well as extend the lifetime of the internal battery of EVs. This will result in huge benefts such as helping to promote EVs, re- ducing oil demand, protecting the environment, decreas- ing the electricity demand on grid and leads to further eco- nomic benefts. This paper proposes a smart and cost ef- fective EV charging methodology for smart homes com- bined with renewable energy such as Photovoltaic (PV) panels. The proposed charging strategy is coupled with a central information control system which can manage historical electricity consumption data, storage, and pro- cessing of the energy generated by the PV panels. This data can be used to manage the battery charging operation to reduce the strain on the electrical grid, the cost to the consumer, and extend the lifetime of the battery. Electric- ity generation is typically focused on providing for peak loads. This means contemporary grid infrastructure does in fact have enough spare capacity to service the load re- quired to charge EVs [1]. However a sufciently high load demand caused by simultaneous charging of electric vehi- cles with desirable charging speed can possibly result in damage to the power grid [2].