California Case - Brian Tarroja & Eric Hittinger

The value of consumer acceptance of controlled electric vehicle charging in a decarbonizing grid: The case of California

Summary

Tarroja and Hittinger (2021) have accomplished a research on PEV smart charging and V2G (Vehicle to Grid) charging in a “highly decarbonized” region in California. The study has revealed positive outcomes for both smart charging and V2G charging approaches.

Smart Charging, or “controlled charging”, means to take control of the charging process. To be more specific, the grid provider (aka the utility) controls the charging time and charging speed based on the grid usage and the time window that the users agree to. V2G Charging means to utilize the PEVs as electricity storage and charge back to the grid.

This study has 3 research questions:

  1. With the increase of PEV drivers’ willingness to participate in the smart charging program, to what extent will GHG emission be reduced?
  2. Originally, grid providers had to buy stationary energy storage to meet the GHG emission reduction goal. If this goal is achieved with the smart charging program, what are the monetary savings?
  3. How does the monetary saving per PEV compare to the cost of purchasing a new PEV?

This literature is the core reference of feasibility of our project.

Results

The results are based on the first 10% of participants (aka the most motivated PEV drivers). For smart charging only, the value is $87 per vehicle-year; for V2G charging, it is $2,850. This huge difference is because V2G helps saving the cost of stationary energy storage.

Gaps

This study has the following limitations:

  1. The values are calculated based on full participation, which means $87 and $2,850 will be the cap of monetary compensation for smart charging and V2G. There should be non-monetary compensation sources, but what can they be?
  2. Now that the smart charging program is proved to be valuable, the next step will be to determine to what extent the PEV drivers will participate in this program, and this is the motivation of our project.
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References

Tarroja, Brian, and Eric Hittinger. 2021. “The Value of Consumer Acceptance of Controlled Electric Vehicle Charging in a Decarbonizing Grid: The Case of California.” Energy 229 (August): 120691. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.energy.2021.120691.