The Impact of Electric Vehicle Fleets on the European Electricity Markets: Evidences from the German Passenger Car Fleet and Power Generation Sector: Economic Papers, Research Series; n° 146

The rapidly increasing participation of renewable energies (REn) into the electric mix, clearly traces the trends for the decarbonization goals in the European Union. Under the priority sale conditions established by governments, the commercialization of REn plays an important role in the consolidation of market prices, which are on a decreasing trend with large fluctuations that reduce the profit in the power sector and therefore, the interest of potential investors. The incorporation of small power capacities, available with a considerable fleet of electric vehicles (EV) disposed to support the bulk power system through an intelligent, and possibly bidirectional recharging system (the vehicle grid integration VGI), could havea positive impact on the electricity market as well as in CO2 emissions. In this context, our purpose is to simulate the impact of a large development of EV on the electricity market andthe economic surplus of the power sector. Through a VGI tool that includes an algorithm of smart charging, we simulate the behavior of a fleet composed by some millions of EV as follows: a decentralized VGI algorithm of smart charging included in each EV estimates the energy consumption in time of the EV fleet. For a specific number of EV, we simulate the aggregated charge on the power grid, and anticipate the total expected load curve for one day. We use the estimated load curve as input in an electricity market model for calculating the producer’s surplus over one year. We show that the increasing EV fleet significantly decreases the fluctuation of the residual electricity demand as well as the electricity price. Consequently, this has a positive impact on the surplus of the sector