Advanced Solutions for the Efficient Integration of Electric Vehicles in Electricity Grids: 2nd Edition

Dear Colleagues,

The decarbonisation of road transport and its efficient integration into the electricity grid is one of the cornerstones of energy transition. The electrification of the transport sector serves two objectives: (1) to reduce the reliance of the transport sector on fossil fuels and (2) to reduce vehicle greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by using environmentally friendly energy sources to meet the EV charging demand. Moreover, electric vehicles (EVs) are increasingly being recognized as valuable distributed energy resources. Their integration into diverse systems, such as power grids, residential homes, and commercial buildings, to enable energy exchange has become a key strategy for addressing the energy crisis and promoting carbon neutrality.

The EV fleet becomes an increasingly important factor for power systems as new grid planning and operational challenges are raised for system operators due to their dynamic spatiotemporal charging behaviour. The challenge for system operators is not only the extra energy demand, but also the simultaneous power demand at the distribution level. Indicatively, the EV charging demand can double the yearly electricity consumption of a household, but the critical issue is that the EV (peak) power demand can be increased by five times when considering the synchronised home charging of an EV fleet at the neighbourhood level. This additional EV demand can provoke network operational issues (overloading or voltage excursions) in the existing grid infrastructure, which would require costly grid reinforcements.

The storage capacity of the battery of electric vehicles is partially exploited for daily use. The idle battery capacity can be exploited by the system/market operators or any other energy stakeholder to support the operation of the electricity grid at all voltage levels. Exploiting the full battery capacity by also considering the bidirectional power flow between the vehicle and the electricity grid will maximise the benefits for both the EV users and the electricity grid. Since the battery capacity of an individual EV is limited to offer ancillary services to the energy stakeholders, advanced (spatiotemporal) aggregation methods should be developed. The provision of ancillary services requires the development of the respective market concepts and management schemes. In addition, distributed approaches must be investigated in order to offer decentralised solutions for the charging and routing management of large EV fleets.

The scope of this Special Issue is to present advanced EV charging and management solutions, enabling the efficient integration of electric vehicles in the electricity grids at all grid levels under a mass deployment scenario. This Special Issue invites contributions detailing cutting-edge research in EV charging technology including vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communication and vehicle-to-everything (V2X) integration. We encourage scholars to explore these developments using the latest methodologies, such as machine learning and artificial intelligence, and to submit their findings for publication in this Special Issue.

We hope you can join us in this Special Issue by contributing original research papers and unpublished work not currently under review by any other journal/magazine/conference. Emerging charging technologies like battery swapping stations and wireless charging can further facilitate the charging process while offering invaluable grid services.

Potential topics include (but are not limited to):

• Stochastic modelling of the expected grid impact of EV deployment;
• Steady-state and dynamic impact analysis of the large-scale integration of EVs in electricity grids;
• Enhanced network planning tools considering EV flexibility and V2G services;
• Efficient charging technologies enabling the provision of ancillary services to the electricity grid or energy markets;
• Advanced spatiotemporal management concepts for offering grid ancillary services;
• Large-scale EV coordination schemes for offering market ancillary services;
• Innovative local market models enabling vehicle-to-grid services;
• Distributed or centralised EV coordination schemes;
• EV/RES/storage synergy schemes;
• Dynamic EV control for frequency support.

Dr. Evangelos Karfopoulos
Dr. Michele Roccotelli
Dr. Ioannis Karakitsios
Guest Editors

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