São Miguel Island as a case study on a possible usage of Electric vehicle to store energy

Energy systems operation in isolated areas is frequently based on imported fossil fuels, which is a problem in different dimensions including environmental, economic and security of supply, with the latter being particularly relevant for any isolated system like Islands. Renewable energy is regarded as a solution to this problem, mainly in its transformation to electricity. This, however, excludes the impact of the transportation sector that represents a significant component of the imported fuels consumption. Other main limitation associated to renewable electricity consists on the need to increase the storage capacity that might attenuate the effect of intermittence of renewable energy sources and the disparity between supply and demand. In both problems - that are associated with renewable energy management - Plug-in Electric Vehicles (PEV) could be a part of the solution in that the use of vehicle to grid (V2G) technology can provide storage of electric energy during low demand times and use it to match the demand in peak hours and/or to avoid fossil fuel consumption.
Therefore, some of the main questions are: could the large scale PEV penetration lead to increases in the fraction of electricity produced from renewable? Is the usage of PEV batteries as a storage system truly the best solution?
São Miguel Island is the main electricity consumer in the whole Azores’s archipelago. There is no power connection to any major grid or even with other Islands. This work analyses a case study of isolated electricity grid, where energy systems modelling is used to assess to different roll out scenarios for large scale PEV penetration and discuss the possibility to increase the potential for the use of renewable electricity.