Economic incentives for reducing peak power utilization in electric vehicle charging stations

This paper examines the economic utility of a method to reduce peak grid load from Personal Electric Vehicles by employing distributed battery storage at charging stations. We introduce a system to cache power at PEV charging stations using batteries to smooth charging station peak loads, replenishing batteries when station load is low, without relying on centralized control. We perform comprehensive large-scale simulations to show that its adoption reduces average daily peak power levels by between 14% and 24% for typical urban and suburban grids. We propose a method for discharging and charging batteries that is driven by economic incentives for charging station operators based on differentiated peak and nonpeak energy prices. We find utility operators can influence charging station owners to invest in batteries by differentiating peak and nonpeak energy prices, and achieve peak power reductions without increasing aggregate charging station energy costs.