Plug-in electric vehicles offer significant benefits to urban well-being says RAP policy brief
Fri 28 June 2013
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A policy brief by the international Regulatory Assistance Project (RAP) says that the introduction of plug-in electric vehicles offers substantial benefits, particularly in urban areas. The paper focuses in particular on the implications of a significant uptake of EVs on the electricity grid.
The RAP paper says that plug-in electric vehicles (PEVs) have no tailpipe emissions and create far less noise compared with conventional vehicles. PEVs also have the potential to reduce the EU’s dependency on oil and to decarbonise the passenger car fleet in the longer term.
How and when PEVs are recharged can dramatically affect the electric grid in different ways. Negative effects could include increased peak loads, over-stressed local distribution networks, and increased air pollution from electricity generation. Whereas, the potential benefits to the grid could include greater use of base load capacity during off-peak periods (load smoothing) and cheaper ancillary grid services. PEVs could also help to integrate variable renewable energy sources (RES).
Increasing shares of variable RES entering the electricity system mean that the resulting net energy demand profile (i.e. total energy demand minus the available low marginal-cost renewable energy from resources such as wind and solar) will become increasingly variable and more challenging to balance. The current focus on peak demand in relation to total system capacity will yield to the more pressing concerns associated with operational reliability and net demand. This is where the system can best capture the value from PEVs. The ability of PEV batteries coupled with the flexible way in which they can be recharged - able to stop, start, accelerate, or decelerate with very high ramp rates, or provide a constant rate of recharge – provides a very flexible energy resource that is able to integrate variable RES into the electricity system.
To view the full policy paper, please follow the associated link.
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