Charging strategies for electric vehicles and their impact on power and energy demand in Värmland

Sammanfattning

With an increased focus on climate neutrality and a transition from internal combustion engines to battery electric vehicles (BEV), the electrical infrastructure is facing new challenges caused by simultaneous charging of electric vehicles. This thesis analyses how different charging strategies can impact the power and energy demand in Värmland, Sweden. Three different future scenarios are created using two different BEV types created based on Värmland’s driving patterns. Using the simulation tool SpiceEV, the scenarios were simulated on three different charging strategies: Greedy, Balanced and Balanced-Market. The scenarios were simulated during both winter and summer conditions as well as both weekdays and weekends. The results show that the Balanced-Market strategy creates significantly higher power peaks compared to the other strategies due to the concentrated charging of most vehicles during the low electricity price periods. The vehicle characteristics such as charging power and energy consumption are shown to influence the power peaks as well. However, the charging strategy has a significantly larger impact. The results demonstrate that even uncontrolled charging strategies such as the greedy strategy create much lower power peaks compared to a market strategy, indicating that not all smart-charging strategies are better for the distribution grid.