Distribution System Services Provided by Electric Vehicles: Recent Status, Challenges, and Future Prospects

Abstract

Trend-setting countries have promoted or even employed an increased number of electric vehicles (EVs) and other distributed energy resources (DERs) in their power systems. This development has triggered new and increasing challenges in the distribution system planning and operation, whereby distribution systems must adapt to the increased share of DERs. However, EVs may also offer new opportunities and can be used to support the grid by providing several local and global powerand energy-based services. This paper presents a review and classification of the services potentially available from EVs for distribution systems, referred to as EV distribution system services (EV-DSS). A detailed description of recent services and approaches is given, and an assessment of the maturity of EV-DSS is provided. Moreover, challenges and prospects for future research are identified, considering key topics, such as the design of the market framework, economic assessment, battery degradation, and the impacts of the transmission system operator service provision by EVs on distribution networks. Thus, this work offers a tool for stakeholders concerning services available from EVs and provides a broad literature framework that can be used as a base for further investigations. It is aligned with the current requirements to move toward realistic implementations of EV-DSS.

Enhanced Coordination Strategy for an Aggregator of Distributed Energy Resources Participating in the Day-Ahead Reserve Market

“…Because of this accelerated growth, greater demand for energy in distribution networks is expected. Such an increase will result in a detrimental impact on the distribution network, resulting in thermal overload, increased losses, voltage magnitude limit violations, local transformer degradation, and increased harmonic distortion [4][5][6][7]. Nevertheless, these problems can be tackled through intelligent strategies for the EV charging coordination, as discussed in [8][9][10].…”

Electric Vehicles Energy Management with V2G/G2V Multifactor Optimization of Smart Grids

“…The automotive EV market has been increasing over the years, due to the decrease in the cost of its components and the concerns to reduce greenhouse gas emissions [4][5][6][7][8][9]. These concerns have forced industries and countries to implement plans to reduce the consumption of fossil fuels, such as the European target to have an EV share of 80% by 2050 [10].…”

“…These concerns have forced industries and countries to implement plans to reduce the consumption of fossil fuels, such as the European target to have an EV share of 80% by 2050 [10]. However, this goal will add an extra demand of 150 GW in the European power system, resulting in demand peaks arising from EV charging stations [8,10,11]. Hence, although EVs with Photovoltaic renewable sources (PV) can be a suitable environmental and economic option assisting the reduction of fossil fuel dependence, when a large number of units is considered, higher demand peaks may erupt, causing stresses to the power system [4,5].…”

“…In addition, the EVM-EMS is expected to be able to store surplus energy in EV batteries in order to supply the system when needed (Vehicle to Grid (V2G)). Electric vehicles can act both as an alternative energy storage and as a generator to support the grid, improving efficiency and reliability [1,5,8,9]. Even more, other functions can be added to the EMS to allow ancillary services of frequency and voltage regulation in distribution grids [8].…”

“…Electric vehicles can act both as an alternative energy storage and as a generator to support the grid, improving efficiency and reliability [1,5,8,9]. Even more, other functions can be added to the EMS to allow ancillary services of frequency and voltage regulation in distribution grids [8]. Since for most of the parking time, the vehicles remain idle, the EVM-EMS enables more flexibility to the demand control [5,11].…”