Integration of electric vehicle charging into an international and environment-friendly context

The market for plug-in electric vehicles (PEV) is gaining rapidly. Several original equipment manufacturers (OEM) have announced the start of new PEV model production. Hence charging a growing number of PEVs will have a major impact on the power grid, especially on the distribution grid. Effectively utilizing renewable energy for charging the PEV's battery is a major objective for reducing the OEM's CO2 fleet emissions due to increased efficiency of the energy consumption. Uncoordinated charging will lead to an additional load on the power grid and an inefficient utilization of renewable energy. As the charge of a PEV may double an average household consumption and usual plug-in times overlay the household consumption peak in the evening the ability of PEVs to shift their electric charging is considered grid-friendly. Furthermore, adapting PEV charging to the availability of renewable energy would reduce CO2 emissions and contribute to the adherence to national and international regulations. The volatile nature of renewables and unpredictability of the PEV fleet's total load, plug-in time and location, causes high challenges for the distribution grid operator. It is the aim of this contribution to show results from research and applications of distribution grid integrations of PEVs with respect to technical limitations. Therefore, a methodology for Managed Charging of PEVs is introduced, the impact of charging multiple PEVs on the distribution grid is evaluated and a comparison between the European and the North American distribution grid is conducted