Analysis of the Potential of Unidirectional and Bidirectional Price Controlled Charging Strategies

The increasing share of electric vehicles (EVs) in the coming years will lead to an additional load. Most vehicles come home during the afternoon and evening. Charging them directly after their arrival (plug and charge strategy) would lead to an increase of the consumption peak in the evening. But EVs are usually connected to the grid for longer than they need to charge their batteries. This enables them to be charged at times of low power demand and low electricity prices (unidirectional price controlled charging strategy) and to thereby even out the power consumption. Furthermore, it is possible to feed in power when the electricity price is high (bidirectional price controlled charging strategy). In this scenario, EVs would serve as a storage device. This paper introduces a simulation model for the plug and charge, the unidirectional, and the bidirectional price controlled charging strategies. These strategies are then compared to each other regarding profitability and technical constraints.