Investigation of the potential for electric vehicles to support the domestic peak load

Electric vehicles (EVs) have been widely deployed in recent years due to their environmental benefits. With maturing battery technology, EVs could act as mobile power sources and hence improve power quality through controlled bidirectional interaction with the power system. This paper explores the possibility of using privately owned EVs to support the grid during the time of weekday domestic peak load based on a proposed charging and discharging rule. In particular, the impact of workplace charging on the potential of grid support capability is investigated for different EVs penetration levels. A time-inhomogeneous Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) model is employed here to simulate the driving patterns based on the UK 2000 Time Use Survey (TUS) data, where four EV states are considered including `driving´, `parking at home´, `parking at workplace´ and `parking at other places´. According to the proposed rule, the charging and discharging profiles that are generated from the MCMC model are then fed to a single-feeder low voltage (LV) UK distribution network model with 42 households to investigate the impact of the grid supporting function of EVs on key system performance measures.