When Shared Autonomous Electric Vehicles Meet Microgrids: Citywide Energy-Mobility Orchestration

Abstract

Motivated by the ever-increasing interconnection of energy and mobility service systems at the urban scale, we develop a cross-disciplinary analytics framework to understand citywide mobility-energy synergy. In particular, we investigate the potential of operating shared autonomous electric vehicles (SAEVs) for improving the self-sufficiency and resilience of solar-powered urban microgrids. We propose models and analytics to characterize the dynamics of the SAEV-microgrid service systems, which were largely overlooked by the literature on service operations and vehicle-grid integration (VGI) analysis. We develop a space-time-energy network representation of SAEVs. Then we formulate linear program models to incorporate an array of main operational decisions interconnecting the mobility and energy systems. The models can efficiently handle large volumes of data and decisions and capture various urban heterogeneities. We also propose an ``N-1'' resilience-constrained fleet dispatch problem. Combining eight sources data of New York City, our results show that even a moderate-sized SAEV fleet can improve microgrid self-sufficiency via the spatial transfer of electricity, which complements conventional VGI, whereas enlisting more SAEVs substitutes conventional VGI by means of providing temporal transfer of electricity. We also quantify the potential of SAEVs for solar power utilization, peak electricity import reduction and ramping mitigation. In addition, microgrid resilience can be significantly enhanced by SAEVs, but the actual resilience level varies by microgrids and by the hour when grid contingency occurs. The SAEV fleet operator can further maintain the resilience of key microgrid areas at their maximum achievable level without significantly compromising the fleet repositioning efficiency. Our models and findings demonstrate the promising and rich potential in deepening the integration of urban mobility and energy service systems towards a smart-city future.