Modeling the Future California Electricity Grid and Renewable Energy Integration with Electric Vehicles

Florian Van Triel,Timothy E Lipman

doi:10.3390/en13205277

Florian Van Triel, Timothy E Lipman

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/en13205277

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Abstract

This study focuses on determining the impacts and potential value of unmanaged and managed uni-directional and bi-directional charging of plug-in electric vehicles (PEVs) to integrate intermittent renewable resources in California in the year 2030. The research methodology incorporates the utilization of multiple simulation tools including V2G-SIM, SWITCH, and GridSim. SWITCH is used to predict a cost-effective generation portfolio to meet the renewable electricity goals of 60% in California by 2030. PEV charging demand is predicted by incorporating mobility behavior studies and assumptions charging infrastructure and vehicle technology improvements. Finally, the production cost model GridSim is used to quantify the impacts of managed and unmanaged vehicle-charging demand to electricity grid operations. The temporal optimization of charging sessions shows that PEVs can mitigate renewable oversupply and ramping needs substantially. The results show that 3.3 million PEVs can mitigate over-generation by ~4 terawatt hours in California—potentially saving the state up to about USD 20 billion of capital investment costs in stationary storage technologies.

Highlights

Electricity grids and electric vehicles (EVs) are co-evolving with technology advances and market developments in major industrialized areas
Capacity ramp-up is hard to handle from a grid operator perspective and the analysis investigates whether plug-in EVs (PEVs) will be able to slow down the capacity increase through managed charging, utilizing the optimization approach in from Equation (6)
GridSim is run with three different load scenarios that align with the demand projections from the California Energy Commission (CEC) Energy Demand Forecast [24]

Summary

Introduction

Electricity grids and electric vehicles (EVs) are co-evolving with technology advances and market developments in major industrialized areas. These advances include increasing use of renewable energy technologies that typically are low emission and intermittent in their operation, growing markets for what is expected to be widespread adoption of EVs, and development of a host of smart-grid and “internet of things” technologies. California has over 600,000 plug-in EVs (PEVs), about half the amount in the United States (U.S.), and a goal of 5 million zero-emission vehicles (ZEVs) by 2030. PEVs include plug-in hybrid vehicles that have duel electricity and gasoline (or other fuel) and combustion engine systems. The dual-fuel PEVs can be designed with different battery pack sizes and electrification levels to provide a lower or higher ratio of electric miles to those from fuel combustion, potentially achieving 80%–90+% of electrified miles with a robust electric-drive architecture component

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