The goal of this project is to understand the impact that widespread consumer adoption of electric vehicles (EVs) will have on the energy grid of residential areas. The research team will first analyse actual consumer data, from the Netherlands and the USA over a period of 24months.
Charging behaviour
They will look for behavioural patterns in the location, frequency, and volume with which consumers charge their EVs, and map out changes in behaviour as consumers mature in their EV usage. These data will help them to predict future behaviour. The research team will use actual consumer data to make computer simulations that will allow testing the impact of different grid infrastructure upgrades and pricing policies on EV charging behaviour.
Authors of the grant proposal are RSM’s Wolf Ketter, professor of next generation information systems and PhD candidate Micha Kahlen, together with Thomas Lee, adjunct associate professor of operations and information technology management at Berkeley Haas School of Business in the USA.
Decentralised electricity generation
“This grant will give us the unique opportunity to combine our complementary skills in data analytics, being the innovations in data science infrastructure developed at UC Berkeley and the electric vehicle domain expertise from our own research centre (ECFEB),” said Prof. Wolf Ketter. “Our research will facilitate the energy industry’s adoption of decentralised electricity generation by creating policies and tariffs that harmonise decentralised electricity production with EV charging.”
Prof. Ketter added: “The existing distribution grid was not constructed with electric vehicles in mind. Neither was the grid constructed for decentralised, renewable energy sources. The decentralised electricity generation that our projects aims to contribute to, holds promise for improving the viability and affordability of sustainable energy by providing service level guarantees at lower cost.”