Internet of Energy Approach for Sustainable Use of Electric Vehicles as Energy Storage of Prosumer Buildings

Abstract

Vehicle-to-building (V2B) technology permits bypassing the power grid in order to supply power to a building from electric vehicle (EV) batteries in the parking lot. This paper investigates the hypothesis stating that the increasing number of EVs on our roads can be also beneficial for making buildings sustainably greener on account of using V2B technology in conjunction with local photovoltaic (PV) generation. It is assumed that there is no local battery storage other than EVs and that the EV batteries are fully available for driving, so that the EVs batteries must be at the intended state of charge at the departure time announced by the EV driver. Our goal is to exploit the potential of the EV batteries capacity as much as possible in order to permit a large area of solar panels, so that even on sunny days all PV power can be used to supply the building needs or the EV charging at the parking lot. A system architecture and collaboration protocols that account for uncertainties in EV behaviour are proposed. The proposed approach is proven in simulation covering one year period for three locations in different climatic regions of the US, resulting in the electricity bill reductions of 15.8%, 9.1% and 4.9% for California, New Jersey and Alaska, respectively. These results are compared to state-of-the-art research in combining V2B with PV or wind power generation. It is concluded that the achieved electricity bill reductions are superior to the state-of-the-art, because previous work is based on problem formulations that exploit only a part of the potential EV battery capacity.

On the integration of the energy storage in smart grids: Technologies and applications

“…Furthermore EVs are more and more considered as necessary technologies for energy storage in smart grids. EVs can operate in two different modes that can serve as an energy storage in a smart grid that is: “Grid‐to‐Vehicle” (G2V) operation where the vehicles are charged using electricity from an electric power grid. Vehicle‐to‐Grid” (V2G) operation where vehicles are discharged to an electric power grid during the parking hours.Another approach is the integration and interconnection of EVs to specific buildings formulating the “Vehicle‐to‐Building” (V2B) alternative which allows buildings to become energy prosumers and increase the share of renewable resources.Through these operational modes, EVs can act either as a load or as a decentralized energy storage in a smart grid.The expansion of EVs includes significant challenges concerning grid stability. Smart bi‐directional charging strategies as well as management strategies of EVs with RES have been proposed by various researchers .…”

“…Another approach is the integration and interconnection of EVs to specific buildings formulating the “Vehicle‐to‐Building” (V2B) alternative which allows buildings to become energy prosumers and increase the share of renewable resources.…”

“…• Vehicle-to-Grid" (V2G) operation where vehicles are discharged to an electric power grid during the parking hours. Another approach is the integration and interconnection of EVs to specific buildings formulating the "Vehicle-to-Building" (V2B) alternative 46 which allows buildings to become energy prosumers and increase the share of renewable resources. Through these operational modes, EVs can act either as a load or as a decentralized energy storage in a smart grid.…”

Energy Routing Control Strategy for Integrated Microgrids Including Photovoltaic, Battery-Energy Storage and Electric Vehicles

“…They could be used as micro sources (V2G) to release electric energy. They could also be used as a load (charging), which is inserted into the grid to store electricity [28][29][30]. In fact, energy routers need to ensure the normal operation and quality of the power grid, but it is also important to ensure the reasonable flow of distributed energy, meet the load demand and control the correct and safe energy flow intelligently.…”

Optimal Energy Management of V2B with RES and ESS for Peak Load Minimization

“…The activities of EVs including charging and discharging enable them to participate in various domains such as vehicle-to-home (V2H), vehicle-to-building (V2B), V2G and vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) [26][27][28]. V2B consists of EVs, bidirectional chargers and small-scale renewable energy resources, such as photovoltaic systems and small-scale wind turbines.…”