2020 IEEE 3rd International Conference on Computer and Communication Engineering Technology
Load Forecasting of Electric Vehicle Charging Station Based on Edge Computing
Anqin Luo
Department of Terminal and Communication
Beijing Smart Chip Microelectronics Technology Company
Limited
Beijing, China
e-mail: 675525103@qq.com
Fei Liang
Metrology Center
State Grid Ningxia Marketing Service Center (Metrology
Center)
Beijing, China
e-mail: 2740918454@qq.com
Di Mu
Department of Terminal and Communication
Beijing SmartChip Microelectronics Technology Company Limited
Beijing, China
e-mail: mudi@sgitg.sgcc.com.cn
Abstract—The randomness of charging behavior in time and
space increases the difficulty of load forecasting of EV
charging stations. In this paper, to improve the accuracy of
load forecasting, by building a load prediction mode based on
stacked auto encoder neural network(SAE) at the edge
platform , and in-depth study of the interaction mode of EV
and power grid. The model of electric vehicle charging pile
load prediction based on SAE is introduced and the key factors
affecting the charging station load, such as historical load,
temperature, weather type, etc. , are also considered. Finally,
the short-term load forecasting of a practical charging station
is realized and compares with DBN and ELM algorithm. The
result shows the proposed approach can provide more accurate
forecasting result, which benefits the stable operation pf power
grid.
Keywords-electric vehicle charging sation; load forecasting;
SAE; edge computing
I. INTRODUCTION
In recent years, the problem of environmental
degradation has become increasingly prominent, and the
ensuing energy problems need to be resolved. The large-
scale use of electric vehicles reduces the use of fuel vehicles,
and the energy can be developed in the direction of
cleanliness. However, the intermittent and randomness of the
charging behavior of electric vehicle users in time and space
leads to the uncertainty of the electric load of electric vehicle
charging stations, which brings a certain degree of impact
and challenges to the existing distribution network. Mainly
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Jianan Yuan
Department of Terminal and Communication
Beijing SmartChip Microelectronics Technology Company
Limited
Beijing, China
e-mail: yuanjianan@sgitg.sgcc.com.cn
Qi Yang
Metrology Center
State Grid Ningxia Marketing Service Center (Metrology
Center)
Beijing, China
e-mail: y1993q0205@163.com
manifested in the following three aspects. First, fluctuations
in the power grid during peak load periods have a certain
impact on the safety and reliability of the distribution
network. Second, charging electric vehicles during peak
electricity consumption increases the cost of the distribution
network. Thirdly, when the electric vehicle chooses the fast
charging method for charging, the transformer will be
overloaded, resulting in a voltage drop, which in turn affects
the electrical energy. Therefore, when power demand is tight,
the remaining capacity of electric vehicle batteries can be
used as a power source during peak load hours. Existing
charging stations have accumulated a lot of historical load
data, which can be used to achieve short-term load
forecasting for electric vehicle charging stations.
At present, a series of studies have been carried out on
the load forecast of electric vehicle charging stations. In the
Ref. [1] proposes a short-term load forecasting method for
quick-change bus charging stations based on fuzzy cluster
analysis combined with BP neural network. In the Ref. [2]
constructed a short-term load forecasting model for electric
vehicle charging stations based on particle swarm
optimization pulse neural network. In the Ref. [3]
constructed a short-term load forecasting model for electric
vehicle charging stations based on particle swarm
optimization pulse neural network. uses the RBF-NN
algorithm to perform short-term load forecasting on electric
vehicle charging stations, without local minimum problems
and fast convergence speed. In the Ref. [4] constructed a
short-term load forecasting model for electric vehicle
charging stations based on particle swarm optimization pulse
 neural network. comprehensively considers information such layer and the hidden layer, w2 represents the weight matrix
as battery status, travel time, driving route and speed for the
background of big data to predict the load of the charging between the hidden layer and the output layer, and bi
station. The electric vehicle load forecast in Ref. [5] is based represents the offset value.
on grid dispatching research and charging station planning. It
proposes an electric vehicle load forecasting method that
takes into account the space-time characteristics. The NHTS
2017 data is used to establish a vehicle traffic behavior
model. Luo simulation to obtain load forecast results. In the
Ref. [6] proposed a charging pile load prediction method
using deep learning quantile regression, which has higher
accuracy and reference value than BP neural network
quantile regression. In the Ref. [7] used gray model, RBF
(radial basis) neural network and BP neural network to
predict electric vehicle charging load, and made a
comparison of the prediction results. The load forecasting
methods of charging stations proposed in the above Layer L3
documents have achieved high accuracy, but in the face of Layer L2
complex and variable charging station load data, the above Layer L1
method is difficult to achieve the expected accuracy [8].
Figure 1. Structure of self-encoder.
The traditional power load forecasting model is mainly
based on weather factors such as temperature and humidity. Stacked auto encoder neural network is a neural network
Compared with the traditional electric load, the load of the model composed of multiple layers of sparse self-encoders.
electric vehicle charging station is more complicated and That is, the output of the former autoencoder is used as the
variable. In view of the current EV charging station load, the input of the latter autoencoder. Suppose there are m training

 x  ,  x  , y   . The
trend of the charging station load curve is closely related to
1
, y  ,
1 n n
historical charging load data, weather type, temperature, day samples in training set
type and charging pile type (fast charging, slow charging)
and other factors. Considering the significant characteristics Sigmoid function is used as the activation function, and the
of electric vehicle charging station load, this paper uses edge cost function of a single neuron is formula (3).
computing to provide electric vehicle load forecasting
1
J  w, b; x, y   hw,b  x   y
2
services. That is, a load prediction model based on a stacked   
auto encoder neural network (SAE) is constructed at the edge 2
platform. The data at the SAE input layer includes the The cost function of M training samples is formula (4).
historical load data of the charging station, weather type,
2
temperature, day type and Five types of charging stations are   l i i
n 1 s s 1
1 m 1
   
2
J  w, b     hw,b x    y      w ji 
l 
i i
used as influencing factors.
m i 1  2  2 l 1 i 1 j 1
II. STRUCTURAL MODEL OF STACKED AUTO ENCODER
x  , y   represents the input volume and output volume
i i
NEURAL NETWORK
w ji   represents the weight of the connection
l
Self-encoder neural network is an unsupervised learning respectively,
algorithm. The goal is to make the output approximately
equal to the input value. That is, H w,b  x   x . The between the front layer and the rear layer, and b represents
the offset value. Assuming that there are n-layer stacking
structure shown in Fig. 1. It has a three-layer structure, L1 is  k ,1  k ,2  k ,1  k ,2
the input layer, L2 is the hidden layer, and L3 is the output self-encoding neural networks, w ,w ,b ,b
layer. are expressed as weights and offset values corresponding to
Generally, the transformation process from the input the k self-encoder. The encoding and decoding process for
layer to the hidden layer is called encoding, and the the stacking self-encoding neural network is as follows.
transformation process from the hidden layer to the output Coding is the propagation of information from front to
layer is called decoding. The encoding and decoding process back, as shown in equations (5) and (6).

 
is calculated by formula (1) and formula (2).
a   f z   
l l
 
 d  S ( w1 x  b1 )  

z
l 1
 w  a   b
l 1
 d  S ( w2 x  b2 )    l ,1 l
 
S in formula (1) and formula (2) represents the Sigmoid Decoding is the propagation of information from back to
function; w1 represents the weight matrix between the input front, as shown in equations (7) and (8).

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  a
n l 
 f z  n l 
 
charging behaviors at the same time every day, this paper
selects the load value at the same time 8 days before the
point to be measured as input data. Since the charging
z
nl 1
 w
nl ,2
a
n l 
 b
l l ,2 behavior of the charging pile has certain stage and continuity,
  
the load value at the first seven moments of the point to be
a j
2
 x  is the activation degree of hidden nerve j in predicted is selected as the input data. At the same time,
select the features related to its prediction as input, including
self-encoding. This value represents a higher abstraction of the weather type, temperature, day type and the type of
the feature, and the calculation formula is formula (9). charging station [9].
The prediction steps are shown in Fig. 2. First, pre-
1 m  2 i
 pˆ j  aj x  
m i 1
 process the data of the test set and samples (historical load
data of the charging station, weather type, temperature, day
type, and type of charging station). Second, SAE reads the
p represents the sparsity coefficient. samples and trains the samples. Finally, the training error is
Using regularization parameters, the mean value of the calculated to determine whether it reaches a limited error,
activation degree can be approximated as a sparsity and if it is reached, the prediction result is obtained,
parameter. The regularization parameter is formula (10). otherwise the sample training is continued until the threshold
is reached.
p 1 p
 KL  pˆ p   p ln  1  p  ln   Start
pˆ j 1  pˆ j
The total cost function is formula (11). Data preprocessing
n

 J sparse  w, b   J sparse  w, b     KL  pˆ p  

Input data and initial samples
j 1

The output error of AE can be calculated by formula (12). Read stacked auto encoder neural
network samples

 
 i3   yi  ai3 f  zi3    
Training samples
According to the function definition and network
structure, the three main factors needed to construct the
Calculate the sum of errors
network can be summarized. They are the center of the
hidden layer node, the width and weight of the hidden layer
and the output layer. The key applications of stack auto
encoder neural networks include pattern classification, Whether a limited error is
no
pattern recognition, function approximation, clustering, reached
prediction, control, and so on. This article uses it as a load
forecast for electric vehicle charging stations. The historical yes
load data of the charging station, the type of weather, the
forecast result
type of temperature day, and the type of charging pile are
input as the influencing factors into the input layer of SAE.
In this paper, the average absolute percentage error EMAPE end
is used as the evaluation standard, and its expression is
formula (13). Figure 2. Flow chart of electric vehicle charging pile load prediction
based on SAE.
1 Yi  Yˆ
 EMAPE 
n
 Yi
100%  
IV. SIMULATION RESULTS AND ANALYSIS
In this paper, 40,000 sets of data load values of a
Yi represents the actual load, Yˆi represents the load charging station are selected as the data source of the training
forecast value, n represents that the load data consists of n set and test set of this experiment. The example in this article
data points. is done on a single computer with 2.5GHz CPU and 4GB
memory. Use MATLAB for algorithm simulation processing.
III. MODEL OF ELECTRIC VEHICLE CHARGING PILE LOAD Charging pile type samples randomly select 31000 sets of
PREDICTION BASED ON SAE data from 40,000 sets of data as the training set, and the
This paper selects the historical load value that has a remaining 9000 sets of data are used as the test set. In order
great correlation with this forecast point as the input data for to ensure the accuracy of the experimental results, the
prediction. Because electric vehicle users have similar experimental data are averaged from 50 experimental data.

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 In order to verify the universality of the forecasting method
used in this paper, the load forecast of the local charging
station is carried out, and the 50-hour load forecast point is
intercepted. Fig. 3 shows the prediction of training data
based on SAE algorithm in a certain area.
SAE
SAE
Actual Value
真实值
电量
Electric quantity
Time/h
时间/h
Figure 3. Load prediction of training set based on SAE algorithm.
Fig. 3 shows that within 24 hours, the results of the
electric vehicle charging station load prediction achieved the
purpose of electric vehicle load prediction. The electricity
load data of the charging station shows certain regularity.
There is a substantial increase in charging capacity at night.
In certain periods of time there may be sharp changes in
electricity load.
In order to prove the advantages of SAE's short-term load
forecasting, DBN and ELM are selected as the comparison
algorithm. Fig. 4 and Fig. 5 are the predicted load values
obtained by the DBN and ELM algorithms, respectively.
Table I shows the performance of charging algorithms in a
certain area using three algorithms. The error EMAPE and
the running time are the average of 50 experiments.
DBN
Electric quantity
Actual Value
Time/h
Figure 4. Load prediction of training set based on DBN algorithm.
Compare the predicted and actual load values of the three
load forecasting methods. Comparing Fig. 3, Fig. 4 and Fig.
5, it can be seen that the deviation of the load prediction
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value obtained by using the DBN and ELM algorithms is
larger than the actual value, and the prediction effect of SAE
is better.
ELM
Electric quantity
Actual Value
Time/h
Figure 5. Load prediction of training set based on ELM algorithm.
TABLE I. PREDICTIVE PERFORMANCE UNDER THREE ALGORITHMS
Algorithm Error EMAPE(%) Tims(s)
SAE 2.54 3.87
DBN 2.87 3.77
ELM 3.71 0.09
In Table I, the load prediction error using the SAE
algorithm is 2.54%, and the load prediction errors using the
DBN and ELM algorithms are 2.87% and 3.71%,
respectively. It is proved that the SAE algorithm has good
generalization performance, and the accuracy of short-term
load forecasting for charging stations is high using this
algorithm.
V. CONCLUSION
As an important part of future power grid load
forecasting, the use of SAE-based edge computing mode for
load forecasting of electric vehicle charging stations,
especially short-term load forecasting, will play a very
important role in the production arrangement, economic
dispatch and safe operation of the power system effect.
Therefore, short-term load forecasting of electric vehicle
charging stations can implement charging control according
to specific strategies. While limiting the negative impact of
the charging load on the power system, it can exert the
specific benefits of charging control and help the stable and
efficient operation of the power grid and charging stations. In
this paper, by selecting the factors that affect the charging
station load prediction, the SAE algorithm in deep learning is
used to make short-term predictions on the charging station
load. Compared with the traditional load forecasting methods
BP and ELM, the method proposed in this paper is more
accurate and stable for short-term load forecasting of
charging stations. Through online monitoring of real-time
operating data and intelligent adjustment of the charging
station input time and charging power according to the
distribution transformer load situation. It can solve the
 problem of distribution transformer overload caused by the
negative superposition of the charging station load and peak,
improve the utilization rate of distribution transformer
equipment, and effectively respond Electric vehicles are
connected on a large scale to guide the orderly use of
electricity.
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