Negative Electric Vehicle Emissions: Vehicle-to-Grid Can Incentivize Enough Wind and Solar Investment to Reverse EV...

Area of Science:

• Environmental Science
• Energy Systems Engineering
• Electrical Engineering

Background:

• Power system analyses often neglect structural changes from new loads.
• Plug-in electric vehicles (PEVs) represent a growing load with potential grid impacts.
• Understanding PEV charging's full emission consequences requires considering induced infrastructure changes.

Purpose of the Study:

• To quantify the consequential emission effects of PEV charging, including operational and induced renewable capacity investment impacts.
• To compare emission externalities of immediate vs. flexible/cost-minimizing PEV charging strategies.
• To assess the role of vehicle-to-grid (V2G) technology in mitigating PEV charging's grid emission footprint.

Main Methods:

• Modeling consequential emission effects of PEV charging on a major U.S. grid operator (PJM).
• Simulating a 10% fleet electrification scenario with a representative North American grid mix.
• Comparing emission externalities with and without accounting for induced renewable capacity investments.

Main Results:

• Immediate PEV charging increases grid emission externalities and offers minimal incentive for renewable investment.
• Flexible, cost-minimizing charging incentivizes significant wind and solar capacity increases (4% unidirectional, 23% V2G).
• Accounting for induced renewables reverses emission externalities, showing net reductions with flexible charging (-$230/PEV-year) and V2G (-$2200/PEV-year).

Conclusions:

• Leveraging charging flexibility and V2G can reduce power system costs.
• These strategies also yield substantial emission co-benefits by driving renewable energy deployment.
• Optimized PEV charging is crucial for realizing environmental benefits and grid decarbonization.