11.04.2023

Synergies of Electric Vehicle Multi-Use

Synergies of Electric Vehicle Multi-Use

As part of the unIT-e² project, various use cases for smart charging of electric vehicles are being developed by 29 partners from the energy industry and automotive industry and tested in field trials. Scientific research in this area is also part of the project. The majority of the use cases of intelligent electromobility relevant in the project offer either the prospect of high economic gains or potential systemic benefits. By combining several use cases (multi-use), it becomes possible to combine economic and systemic interests. Hence, we expect that future combinations of use cases will find their way into implementation. It is therefore all the more important that combinations of use cases are analyzed and evaluated in more detail in the research subproject.

Paper: Analyzing the Implementation Effort for Use Case Combinations in Smart E-Mobility

An open access paper on the topic of “Synergies of Electric Vehicle Multi-Use” has been published in the scientific journal energies of the MDPI. This paper presents a new methodological approach to analyze and compare the synergies of different use case combinations. The focus of the paper is on evaluating the potential for reducing the technical implementation effort that results from the simultaneous implementation of multiple use cases. The methodology used is to first calculate an effort factor for individual use cases based on detailed technical analyses. In addition, an effort factor is generated for each possible use case combination. The comparison of separate effort factors and combined effort factors is evaluated as a measure of possible synergies, whereby the quantitative values are converted into a qualitative scale for this purpose. The following figure shows an example of the result for combinations of two use cases for an implementation in a private home.

Figure: Synergies of the reduction of the implementation effort for combinations of two use cases at home

The results generally show that simultaneous implementation of complex use cases, often involving front-of-the-meter pooling of electric vehicles, results in the largest synergies. Combinations that include operating reserve and spot market trading lead to significant reductions in implementation effort. The balance of profitability and systemic benefits with low absolute effort requires combinations that include behind-the-meter implemented use cases, such as optimizing self-consumption. Challenges in implementing the studied combinations arise mainly from technical hurdles and the fact that some use cases are not yet fully defined in regulatory terms. The detailed analysis of the results and the description of the methodology are provided in the paper.