Assessing the Need and State of Power System and Transportation System Co-Simulation

Abstract

According to the Environmental Protection Agency, the power and transport systems contribute over 50% of greenhouse gas emissions in the United States. The combination of renewable energy resources and electrified transportation play a crucial role in helping countries meet their carbon neutrality goals. Coordinated planning of the power and transportation systems is necessary to ensure reliable, efficient, and economic operation of both systems. This paper surveys applications of large-scale transportation electrification, vehicle-to-grid charging, prosumer behavior, sector coupling, route optimization, and charging demand and estimation. The co-simulation frameworks available for coupling the power and transport systems to further study these applications are also surveyed. Most of the existing literature utilizes stochastic transportation models or ad-hoc co-simulation approaches which do not promote scalability, extensibility, and interoperability. It is proposed to extend the Hierarchical Engine for Large-Scale Infrastructure Co-simulation to communicate with an agent based transportation simulator for examining these interconnected applications.