Peak-shaving in area electricity grids with electric vehicles:

Comparative investigation of different charging strategies

Abstract

Peaks in electricity consumption have a major impact on the stability of the electricity grid and the financial burden on commercial and industrial end consumers in the maximum demand rate. When electric vehicles are charged at the end consumer’s premises, the peak demand can increase further. This can be partially avoided by intelligent unidirectional charging. Bidirectional charging allows the load to be distributed further by using the battery storage in the vehicles. This study examines how the different charging strategies affect the overall consumption in an area electricity grid as the fleet size increases. Real data from the Saarland University campus serves as an example here. The results of the simulation study show that bidirectional charging in particular offers considerable potential for reducing costs.