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Impact of optimal charging of electric vehicles on future generation portfolios
2009-09, Shortt, Aonghus, O'Malley, Mark
Battery electric vehicles are considered by many to
be part of a series of measures necessary to reduce global carbon
dioxide emissions and dependence on fossil fuel resources. The extent
to which this is possible depends on how successfully they can
be implemented into the broader system. This paper considers
the power systems impact of different vehicle charging regimes.
A test system with a high proportion of variable renewables was
considered. Charging profiles were developed for slow, fast and
controlled optimal charging and optimal generation portfolios
were developed using a least-cost optimisation algorithm. It was
found that over-night charging at the slow rate resulted in a
reduction in the average cost of electricity by between 4.2 and 6%
compared to the base-case. For the high charging rate cases, the
average cost of electricity rises by between 3 and 7%. When the
charging is controlled centrally and optimised so as to increase
the minimum system load maximally, it is found that the average
cost of electricity is reduced by between 4.5 and 8.2%. None of
the above cases resulted in significant changes in the average
CO2 emissions per unit electricity output. However, it was found
that by increasing the minimum system load, optimal charging
could facilitate additional inflexible generation such as variable
renewables or nuclear fission plant. Where nuclear capacity is
added to the generation portfolios based on optimal charging,
average CO2 emissions per unit of electricity are seen to fall
between 22 and 41% for the cases studied, with the average cost
of electricity reducing by between 9.5 and 21.5%.