Impact of Electric Vehicle Customer Response to Time-of-Use Rates on Distribution Power Grids

C. Jones, William Vining, Matthew Lave, Thad Haines, Christopher Neuman, Jesse Bennett, Don Scoffield

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

27 Scopus Citations

Abstract

Electric Vehicles (EV) present a unique challenge to electric power system (EPS) operations because of the potential magnitude and timing of load increases due to EV charging. Time-of-Use (TOU) electricity pricing is an established way to reduce peak system loads. It is effective at shifting the timing of some customer-activated residential loads – such as dishwashers, washing machines, or HVAC systems – to off-peak periods. EV charging, though, can be larger than typical residential loads (up to 19.2 kW) and may have on-board controls that automatically begin charging according to a pre-set schedule, such as when off-peak periods begin. To understand and quantify the potential impact of EV charging's response to TOU pricing, this paper simulates 10 distribution feeders with predicted 2030 EV adoption levels. The simulation results show that distribution EPS experience an increase in peak demand as high as 20% when a majority of the charging begins immediately after on-peak times end, as might occur if EV charging is automatically scheduled. However, if charging start times are randomized within the off-peak period, EV charging is spread out and the simulations showed a decrease in the peak load to be 5% lower than results from simulations that did not implement TOU rates.

Original languageAmerican English
Pages (from-to)8225-8235
Number of pages11
JournalEnergy Reports
Volume8
DOIs
StatePublished - Nov 2022

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2022

NREL Publication Number

  • NREL/JA-5400-83514

Keywords

  • Caldera
  • Electric Vehicles
  • EVI-Pro
  • Grid
  • OpenDSS
  • Time-of-Use

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