An economic evaluation of the coordination between electric vehicle storage and distributed renewable energy

Abstract Driven by the booming of electric vehicle (EV) market, the cost of lithium ion battery observes a remarkable decline which could significantly improve the capability of EVs in coordinating with the power generation from distributed renewable energy (DRE). This paper realizes that there are different EV-DRE coordination strategies while the costs and the associated infrastructure of these strategies significantly differ. An economic evaluation that compares these coordination strategies is therefore important. In this study, an economic evaluation is conducted among four EV-DRE coordination strategies. It finds that the cost of power supply from demand side PV plus storage systems could be lower than that of power grid supply before 2025. Besides, although the smart charging is a cost-efficient EV-DRE coordination strategy in the short term, V2G could be more economically attractive in the long run due to its capacity to fully realize the potential of on-board EV batteries. This paper also identifies the key barriers that EVs and distributed storage are facing in participating in the current electricity wholesale market in China and provides policy recommendations in terms of electricity time of use (TOU) tariffs, market thresholds and metering issues.