Abstract
The number of electric vehicles (EVs) and solar photovoltaic panels (PVs) are rapidly increasing in many power grids. An important emerging challenge is managing their less desirable consequences (e.g. grid instability and peak load), particularly in urban environments. We present a solution that matches the temporal nature of PV generation and EV charging. This solution is a simple coordination strategy for EV charging which minimally affects EV availability for drivers while maximizing the PV electricity generation absorbed by EV batteries. The strategy is benchmarked with high-resolution data from a medium-sized European city. We find that this coordination provides large benefits compared to commonly-observed uncoordinated charging patterns across seasons and PV and EV integration levels. With charging coordination, almost 71%–92% of the EV charging load can be provided by solar panels in the summer. However, winter’s lower solar irradiance results in a larger range of possibilities (13%–76%), with the exact value depending on the combination of PV and EV integration level. The gains compared to uncoordinated charging are generally highest in winter and similarly vary based on PV and EV integration levels (from 5 to 63 percentage points). Additionally, these benefits do not appear to come at a significant cost to EV availability for drivers.
Highlights
Environmental concerns about climate change and pollution have created widespread interest in replacing coal- and natural gas-based electricity generation with cleaner alternatives
Good et al [13] ascribe rooftop PV yields a considerable potential in covering electric vehicles (EVs) charging loads, they neglect the flexibility of EV charging, whose patterns can be matched with PV generation [20]
The consumption needs of EVs can be adjusted to match the uncontrollable nature of PV generation
Summary
Environmental concerns about climate change and pollution have created widespread interest in replacing coal- and natural gas-based electricity generation with cleaner alternatives. Prior city-wide studies had low granularity [17,18], disregarded temporal matching [12] and/or oversimplified assumptions (see Shepero et al [10],Wu et al [19] for details) These issues drastically limit the realism and geographic applicability of their results and stress the lack of conclusive high-resolution spatiotemporal studies on the synergistic potential of PV generation and EV charging [12]. Good et al [13] ascribe rooftop PV yields a considerable potential in covering EV charging loads, they neglect the flexibility of EV charging, whose patterns can be matched with PV generation [20].
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