Cleaning up the transportation sector is key for meeting climate goals, but as we move to “green” up travel, we risk overstraining the electric grid or requiring costly power capacity additions. Most people tend to charge EVs at home, at night — the opposite of when the most solar power is generated. A March 15 paper in Cell Reports Physical Science co-authored by External Professor Jessika Trancik (MIT) says that travel behaviors are predictable and diversified in ways that can help. If we choose where to locate chargers based on these aspects of travel behavior, EVs can actually help the grid by distributing load more effectively.
Trancik and her colleagues analyzed data from two very different U.S. cities — New York and Dallas — about travel and charging behavior. They found that installing less expensive, slower charging stations at workplaces was an effective approach to utilizing solar power, and that combining workplace charging with low-tech, preprogrammed devices to stagger home charging during evenings can essentially eliminate the electricity demand peaks from EVs that would otherwise require power system capacity expansion.
Read the study “Strategies for beneficial electric vehicle charging to reduce peak electricity demand and store solar energy” at doi.org/10.1016/j.xcrp.2023.101287