Analysis of future electricity demand and supply in the low voltage distribution grid

Electricity demand and supply is expected to change significantly in the coming decades: electric vehicles, heat pumps, solar panels and μ-CHP-units all will have an impact on what the electricity usage of households will look like in the coming decades. As a consequence, it will be difficult for electricity distribution system operators to make accurate predictions of the required investments in the low voltage distribution grid. Moreover, new technologies are becoming available to distribution system operators to influence the balance of electricity demand and supply at the low voltage distribution grid. The implementation of demand side management, smart charging of electric vehicles and smart storage of electricity can be used to influence the load on the distribution grid. In this paper the effects of the different scenarios regarding future electricity demand and the different technologies available to distribution system operators are combined in a single model to analyse their impact on the distribution grid. Further, it is investigated how this affects the investments necessary to ensure a reliable electricity grid. The main conclusion is that especially the growing number of electric vehicles has a high impact: a large market penetration of electric vehicles results in a large increase of the grid load. A larger charging power increases the impact of electric vehicles on household electricity demand further. The implementation of smart charging can positively influence the grid load and consequently leads to fewer investments, but cannot completely negate the effect.