Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)This paper proposes three metaheuristic optimization techniques to solve the plug-in electric vehicle (PEV) charging coordination problem in electrical distribution systems (EDSs). Optimization algorithms based on tabu search, greedy randomized adaptive search procedure, and a novel hybrid optimization algorithm are developed with the objective of minimizing the total operational costs of the EDS, considering the impact of charging the electric vehicle batteries during a specific time period. The proposed methodologies determine a charging schedule for the electric vehicle batteries considering priorities according to the PEV owners charging preferences. A 449-node system with two distributed generation units was used to demonstrate the efficiency of the proposed methodologies, taking into account different PEV penetration levels. The results show that the charging schedule found makes the economic operation of the EDS possible, while satisfying operational and priority constraints. © 2016 Elsevier B.V.142351361CAPES, Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível SuperiorCNPq, Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e TecnológicoFAPESP, Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São PauloCoordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)