New Study Shows Major Benefits Of Strategic Placement of EV Charging Stations

A new study by MIT researchers has highlighted two of the issues that could arise from the large-scale deployment of battery electric vehicles and photovoltaic electricity adoption. While both these technologies are vital to combat climate change, some downsides need to be mitigated. The first is an increase in electricity cost, which can arise from the peak evening electricity demand increase. The second is the overgeneration of electricity that can occur during midday. However, in addition to examining these risks, the study proposes elegant solutions to mitigate these issues.?

The study then investigated mitigating strategies by modeling the hourly electricity demand under BEV and PV adoption in two United States cities. The criteria for these strategies were that no travel behavior changes from drivers would be needed, and no new technologies would be used. The study by Zachary Needell, Wei Wei, and Jessika E. Trancik is available to view online (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2666386423000462) and found that the answer could be the strategic placement of BEV chargers and time-shifting charging.?

To virtually eliminate the peak evening electricity demand increase, the study found that the simplest solution would be delayed home charging. All drivers would need to do is pre-program their EV charging to conclude a fixed amount of time before they intend to drive in the morning. Furthermore, the study concluded that workplace charging would be the most simple and effective solution for mitigating both the peak increase and over-supply of PV. In fact, workplace charging was found to triple the amount of excess PV generation that BEVs can absorb while reducing peak evening electricity demand.?

The combination of delayed home charging and workplace charging was found to complement one another and accomplish the goals of reducing peak loads and storing solar energy more efficiently. While the data is based on an analysis of two cities in the United States over one year, the researchers are confident that it can apply more broadly to other locations too. The results of the study are similar to one published in 2022 (https://rdcu.be/c7Lk0), which argued in favor of daytime-charging options that are convenient, inexpensive, widespread, and accessible to the public.?