Impact of Electric Vehicles on a Carbon Constrained Power System—A Post 2020 Case Study

Zhebin Sun¹, Kang Li¹, Zhile Yang¹, Qun Niu², Aoife Foley³

¹School of Electronics, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Queen’s University Belfast, Belfast BT9 5AH, UK.
²School of Mechatronic Engineering and Automation, Shanghai Key Laboratory of Power Station Automation Technology, Shanghai University, Shanghai 200072, China.
³School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Queen’s University Belfast, Belfast BT9 5AH, UK.

DOI: 10.4236/jpee.2015.34017                

Abstract

Electric vehicles (EVs) offer great potential to move from fossil fuel dependency in transport once some of the technical barriers related to battery reliability and grid integration are resolved. The European Union has set a target to achieve a 10% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2020 relative to 2005 levels. This target is binding in all the European Union member states. If electric vehicle issues are overcome then the challenge is to use as much renewable energy as possible to achieve this target. In this paper, the impacts of electric vehicle charged in the all-Ireland single wholesale electricity market after the 2020 deadline passes is investigated using a power system dispatch model. For the purpose of this work it is assumed that a 10% electric vehicle target in the Republic of Ireland is not achieved, but instead 8% is reached by 2025 considering the slow market uptake of electric vehicles. Our experimental study shows that the increasing penetration of EVs could contribute to approach the target of the EU and Ireland government on emissions reduction, regardless of different charging scenarios. Furthermore, among various charging scenarios, the off-peak charging is the best approach, contributing 2.07% to the target of 10% reduction of Greenhouse gas emissions by 2025.

Keywords

Carbon Emissions, Electric Vehicles, Power System, PLEXOS, Energy Forecasting

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

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