Benefits
EV Owner
- Lower energy bills
- Additional renevue streams
- Increase self consumption of on site solar
- Support local community / electricity network
Network and system operators
- Huge source of flexibility to help manage system and network
Suppliers, aggregators & service providers
- Can earn revenue from managing electricity market positions and/or providing provision of system and network services.
- May avoid need for costly network upgrades
- May complement other forms of flexibility within blended portfolios of assets
Frequency response and reserve
The supply and demand of electricity in a system needs to be in balance. When a power station drops off, there is a shortfall in supply.
Electric vehicles (aggregated into portfolios) can help fill this shortfall by stopping charging (reducing demand on the system) and exporting the power in the battery (increasing supply to the system). Similarly if too much power on the system, then EVs can start charging. This can occur over different timescales: ‘frequency response’ requires a response within 1-30 secs (subject to market requirements). ‘Reserve’ requires power to be exported within minutes to hours.
Arbitrage
The price of electricity in the wholesale electricity market varies over the day, with the evening typically having higher prices.
It is therefore possible to buy energy at low prices during the day, and then sell this energy at higher prices during the evening. This process is called ‘arbitrage’.
DSO services
Distribution System Operators (DSOs) own various network equipment which is rated to a certain capacity.
At peak times, the power demanded by the homes and business can approach or exceed the capacity of the substation to provide this power.
As capacity limits approach, investment in network infrastructure may be required
Flexible demand, including V2G EVs can help manage this by exporting power (or reducing import) to reduce demand on the network at peak times and charge when capacity is available
This is an example of a ‘DSO’ Service and is termed ‘constraint management’. Other services include voltage control.
Time shifting
The price paid for electricity can vary during the day. For instance, if there are time of day tariffs, grid charges at particular times or there is onsite solar generation.
Time-shifting is when an EV owner uses their EV to shift the time at which they consume electricity, charging the EV at low prices (or periods of high solar) and then discharging the EV (into the home or business) during periods of high prices. The aim is to reduce the overall cost of energy.
Increase self consumption of on site solar.
Emergency power / off-grid
With right settings EV’s can provide power if there is an outage on electricity network or if there in off-grid setting (i.e. no electricity network).