A temporal assessment of vehicle use patterns and their impact on the provision of vehicle-to-grid services
With the emerging nationwide availability of battery electric vehicles (BEVs) at prices attainable for many consumers, electric utilities, system operators and researchers have been investigating the impact of this new source of energy demand. The presence of BEVs on the electric grid might offer benefits equivalent to dedicated utility-scale energy storage systems by leveraging vehicles’ grid-connected energy storage through vehicle-to-grid (V2G) enabled infrastructure. It is, however, unclear whether BEVs will be available to provide needed grid services when those services are in highest demand. In this work, a set of GPS vehicle travel data from the Puget Sound Regional Council (PSRC) is analyzed to assess temporal patterns in vehicle use. These results show that vehicle use does not vary significantly across months, but differs noticeably between weekdays and weekends, such that averaging the data together could lead to erroneous V2G modeling results. Combination of these trends with wind generation and electricity demand data from the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) indicates that BEV availability does not align well with electricity demand and wind generation during the summer months, limiting the quantity of ancillary services that could be provided with V2G. Vehicle availability aligns best between the hours of 9 pm and 8 am during cooler months of the year, when electricity demand is bimodal and brackets the hours of highest vehicle use.