Capacity value estimation of plug-in electric vehicle parking-lots in urban power systems: A physical-social coupling perspective

Abstract

This paper presents a study to investigate the potential role of public plug-in electric vehicle grid-connected parking lot (GPL) in improving the sustainability of power supply as virtual energy storage in the urban grid. For this, a comprehensive evaluation framework is proposed which introduces an extension of the generation-oriented concept of capacity value to GPL, with the aim of assessing their contribution to adequacy of supply for different settings. In order to capture the volatility in the available energy from GPL, a compound parametric model is developed from the perspective of physical-social system. Comparing with peer studies, our proposed approach has prominent advantages: (a) it accounts the effects from both technical and human factors associated with the GPL operations; (b) it considers the uncertainty of vehicle users’ preference for using GPL and its potential dynamics with the externalities. Hence, it can provide a more comprehensive and realistic representation of the operating characteristics of the GPL. A general framework based on the sequential Monte-Carlo simulation method is developed to derive the corresponding capacity value indices. The effectiveness of the proposed method is validated through implementation on both a standard test case and a real distribution system in China. The obtained results suggest that the capacity value of GPLs could vary significantly, dependent on both the operational characteristics of facilities and the charging pattern of electric vehicles. Additionally, the uncertainties in drivers’ behaviors can have a noticeable impact on the reliability benefits of GPL program.