Grid Planning and Management
Overview
Integrating electric vehicles (EVs) into the electric grid offers significant opportunities to enhance e-mobility penetration, grid economics, and resilience. However, extensive planning is required to capitalize on these opportunities. Fleet data and people's travel patterns are crucial elements when assessing how proposed EV penetration targets will impact the capacity and reliability of the current electric grid. Evaluating the grid's ability to accommodate additional EV loads, known as hosting capacity, enables planners and operators to optimize planned grid upgrades and minimize the need for costly infrastructure investments such as building new transmission assets.
EVs are the largest and most flexible load in a typical household. Therefore, they present opportunities for flexible load management that can improve grid resilience and reduce costs. Utilities play a pivotal role in this process, as they oversee the generation, transmission, and distribution of electricity. On the other hand, uncontrolled EV charging can negatively impact the distribution grid, creating grid impact concerns that can constrain the deployment of EVs and the operation of charging infrastructure, ultimately hindering national EV goals. While utilities generally have a good understanding of their current customer needs, accurately forecasting if, where, and when EVs will contribute to future electricity demand remains a challenge.
Key Actions for Developing a Reliable and Resilient Grid for Future Electricity Demands
- Assess Charging Infrastructure Needs: The first step in preparing for future electricity demands is assessing charging infrastructure needs. Tools like the Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Projection (EVI-Pro) model can help predict the type and amount of charging infrastructure required for different regions based on EV adoption scenarios and travel patterns, enabling more accurate planning and investment.
- Perform Hosting Capacity Analysis: Conducting hosting capacity analyses (HCA) helps utilities make efficient and cost-effective decisions about deploying EV supply equipment (EVSE). Hosting capacity maps, enabled by geographic information systems (GIS), can guide utilities in identifying optimal locations for high-demand charging stations, balancing grid capacity, ensuring reliability and utilizing charge management strategies to mitigate adverse impacts.
- Plan for future Grid Upgrades and Infrastructure needs: Assessing future electricity demand for EV scenarios and proactively planning for upgrading of distribution and transmission systems can accommodate the increasing penetration of EVs. This is a high capital cost activity and much advance planning is needed including employing dedicated staff and early communication with developers can optimize long-term project economics and streamline interconnections.
- Implement Managed Charging Protocols: Establishing managed charging protocols with developers or charging station owners can help regulate electricity flow to EVs, making them a flexible load that supports cost-effective grid investment and management. This approach can reduce the need for extensive grid upgrades by spreading EV charging over time and aligning it with periods of abundant, low-cost electricity generation.
- Incentivize Grid-Friendly Charging Behavior: Utilities can incentivize grid-friendly charging behavior to better utilize existing infrastructure, reduce grid infrastructure investment requirements, and support the broader integration of renewable energy. The first step is for a utility to establish time-sensitive pricing (such as time-of-use or demand-response pricing) that encourages people to charge their EVs during off-peak load. Software-based load management and the deployment of distributed energy resources (DERs), such as solar and energy storage, can further minimize utility upgrade needs and lower costs.
- Establish Standardized Interconnection Procedures: Utilities, EV charging infrastructure providers, and regulatory authorities can collaborate to standardize interconnection procedures to balance proper installations with maintaining safety and reliability. This collaboration can facilitate efficient interconnection processes, meet increasing demand, and put policies in place conducive to the adoption and integration of EVs. Additionally, proper safety standards for communications with the grid is essential to reduce cyber security hazards.
- Invest in Transparent Processes: Creating transparent design specifications can expedite interconnection and ensure effective site selection, permitting, and construction of EV charging infrastructure. Proactive equipment ordering and maintaining a dedicated team for EV projects can further enhance the efficiency and success of grid integration efforts.
- Invest in Workforce Education: Investing in workforce education is essential as the demand for new skills, job transitions, and re-certification grows with the shift to an EV-focused labor market. At present, in developing countries, there is a critical need for electricians capable of installing, testing, and validating EV charging stations. In parallel, countries must invest in university or technical institute level curriculum updates, with computer science as a basic requirement for electrical engineers. In most countries, utilities lead the relationship between charging station owners and managing grid reliability and therefore, a clear expectation needs to be set for future workforce education requirements.
In Tunisia, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) Partnership is assisting the national utility, STEG, in managing the grid impacts of EVs. Using tools like EVOLVE and EMeRGE, the Partnership helps evaluate the effects of DERs—such as EVs—on the Tunisian grid. This analysis supports effective planning and integration of sustainable transport technologies, enhancing grid resilience and optimizing the management of new energy demands.
Additionally, many countries around the world are expressing concerns about the viability of their electrical grid for future electricity loads, especially in Southeast Asia. Recently, the Lao People’s Democratic Republic (PDR) expressed their concern over the impact of unplanned EV charging loads on the local grid, so the USAID-NREL Partnership is supporting them by developing a customized model that can be used to evaluate future EV charging impacts at the distribution level.
Read more about USAID-NREL Partnership projects here and explore how we are driving innovative solutions in clean energy and sustainable transport.
Resources
Energy Systems Decarbonization: Perspectives on Electric Vehicles and Grid Integration
National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), 2024
This presentation discusses the decarbonization of energy systems through EVs and their integration with the power grid. It highlights the rapid adoption of EVs, the development of a convenient and reliable charging infrastructure, and the implications for electricity systems. The presentation emphasizes the potential for EVs to become a major source of electricity demand growth and demand-side flexibility, offering opportunities to enhance grid efficiency, reduce costs, and increase resilience.
Grid Integration of Electric Vehicles
International Energy Agency (IEA), 2022
This policy makers manual is prepared under the framework of the Global Environment Facility programme aimed at supporting low- and middle-income economies in their transition to electric mobility. It aims to serve as a guide for policy makers to effectively integrate EV charging into the grid, thereby supporting road transport electrification and decarbonisation.
Impacts of Electric Vehicles on Power Systems
Women in Power System Transformation (PST), 2022
This online course addresses the challenges and solutions for integrating EVs into the grid, covering global efforts, projections, regulations, and policies. It focuses on modeling issues, commercial software for EV integration studies, root-cause analysis, and the synergy between variable renewable energy resources and EV integration.
Paving the Way: Emerging Best Practices for Electric Vehicle Charger Interconnection
Interstate Renewable Energy Council (IREC), 2022
This paper reviews the process for connecting EV chargers to the grid, lists the challenges faced by third-party EV charging station (EVCS) developers, and identifies options for addressing these challenges through new policies and practices at the state, local, and utility levels.
Assessing the Value of Electric Vehicle Managed Charging: A Review of Methodologies and Results
Royal Society of Chemistry, 2021
This study analyzes the challenges and benefits of large-scale EV adoption on the grid, advocating for managed charging to optimize energy systems and grid reliability.
The State of Managed Charging in 2021
Smart Electric Power Alliance (SEPA), 2021
This report highlights the necessity of managed charging programs for utilities to handle the growing EV market and its impact on the power system. It provides survey results, case studies, and recommendations for optimizing these programs, including the integration of new technologies like vehicle-to-grid (V2G) and vehicle telematics, to avoid distribution upgrade bottlenecks and reduce costs.
Preparing Distribution Utilities for Utility-Scale Storage and Electric Vehicles
USAID-NREL Partnership, 2020
This report evaluates the impact of emerging distributed energy resources (DERs) such as solar photovoltaics, battery energy storage systems, and EVs on India's distribution networks, driven by government targets to modernize the electricity system and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. It details the development of an advanced analysis framework by NREL and BSES Rajdhani Power Ltd. to assess the readiness of power distribution systems to integrate these technologies and address potential infrastructure challenges, with specific evaluations on scenarios involving battery storage and EV density.
Preparing for an Electric Vehicle Future: How Utilities Can Succeed
Smart Electric Power Alliance (SEPA), 2019
This report describes typical utility and industry practices today and outlines how utilities can prepare for increasing EV charging infrastructure deployment.
Critical Elements of Vehicle-to-Grid (V2G) Economics
NREL, 2017
This report explores the critical elements of V2G economics by summarizing the elements and costs of a V2G system. The report also describes V2G revenue-generating services and the business cases for providing these services, providing notes on real-world V2G applications and lists concerns related to V2G.
Interstate Renewable Energy Council (IREC), 2017
This report provides insights and guidelines on overseeing utilities' hosting capacity analyses, drawing on experiences from states like California, New York, and Minnesota in the U.S.
If you are interested in collaborating or learning more about the USAID-NREL Partnership's international sustainable transport and electric mobility initiatives, please contact us to learn more about partnership opportunities.