An assessment of electric vehicles and vehicle to grid operations for residential microgrids

Abstract

Electric Vehicles (EVs) are a rapidly growing technology which can lower greenhouse-gas emissions in the transport and energy sectors. The EV batteries can discharge the stored energy back to grid, also known as Vehicle-to-Grid (V2G) which can support the integration of variable distributed renewable generation. Previous research identified financial barriers to the implementation of V2G, however, recent advancements in battery technology present new opportunities to make V2G technology viable. Using the current and predicted EV technology trends, this paper evaluates the annual operation and benefits of EVs and V2G in a microgrid environment and demonstrates different modes of operation. Guided by the gaps identified in the literature, one of the main contributions of this research is to uncover the impact of EV charging scenarios on the V2G operations. Furthermore, the research reveals the interactions between V2G and variable renewable generation coupled with utility scale battery over yearlong simulations to assess seasonal characteristics of V2G operations, which was mostly unexplored to date. Simulation results indicate that the operation of V2G in an optimised microgrid environment improves the economic operation of the system and reduces the levelized cost of electricity by up to 5.7%. Additionally, V2G provides more benefit to grids with higher solar generation proportion The results suggest that the latest advancements in EV technology have improved the economic viability of V2G as well as its potential to improve grid efficiency through providing additional storage capacity and peak demand management.

Keywords

• Vehicle-to-Grid
• Electric Vehicles
• Microgrid
• Linear programming optimisation
• Residential microgrids