Uncertainty analysis of the electric vehicle potential for a household to enhance robustness in decision on the EV/V2H technologies

Abstract

Electric vehicles (EVs) and vehicle-to-home (V2H) technologies are regarded as promising technologies for optimizing household energy management, particularly as valuable resources for optimizing the management of distributed photovoltaic (PV) generation. However, the potential of EVs and V2H for households is closely related to their usage behavior. As EVs and V2H technologies are big investments for a family, especially for families in rural area, their benefits for households need to be analyzed in an uncertain environment to obtain robust results and mitigate investment risks for households. To achieve this, this study builds a 7-parameter stochastic model to simulate random driving patterns and employs a mixed-integer linear programming model to derive the optimal solution for the household energy system. Subsequently, the potential value of EVs and V2H technologies for a household is assessed based on three key performance indicators: economic viability, carbon emissions reduction, and energy and power autonomy. The findings of this study demonstrate that the EV is a viable technology for significantly reducing household energy expenditures, lowering household carbon emissions, and enhancing household energy and power autonomy. Furthermore, the V2H technology can provide additional benefits by further reducing carbon emissions as well as increasing the autonomy of the household energy system. However, the impact of V2H technologies on household energy expenditures is limited. The above conclusions still hold when the EV travel behavior stochasticity is taken into account, but an unexpected finding is that EV travel behavior stochasticity has almost no effect on the economy and carbon emission indicators, while significantly affecting the autonomy of the household energy system. Further investigation uncovers that the external charging price plays a critical role in determining the potential of EV + V2H technology as both stationary and mobile energy storage for households. Additionally, it is observed that the impact of EV travel behavior stochasticity on household energy expenditures becomes pronounced as the external charging price decreases, which can assist families in making reasonable decisions on configuring emerging technologies, like EV and V2H.