Impact of Electric Vehicles as Distributed Energy Storage in Isolated Systems: The Case of Tenerife

Isolated regions are highly dependent on fossil fuels. The use of endogenous sources and the improvement in energy efficiency in all of the consumption activities are the two main ways to reduce the dependence of petroleum-derived fuels. Tenerife offers an excellent renewable resource (hours of sun and wind). However, the massive development of these technologies could cause important operational problems within the electric power grids, because of the small size of the system. In this paper, we explore the option of coupling an electric vehicle fleet as a distributed energy storage system to increase the participation of renewables in an isolated power system, i.e., Tenerife Island. A model simulator has been used to evaluate five key outputs, that is the renewable share, the energy spilled, the CO2 emissions, the levelized cost of generating electricity and fuel dependence, under alternative scenarios. Comparing to the current situation, combining a gradual renewable installed capacity and the introduction of an electric vehicle fleet using alternative charging strategies, a total of 30 different scenarios have been evaluated. Results shows that the impact of 50,000 electric vehicles would increase the renewable share in the electricity mix of the island up to 30%, reduce CO2 emissions by 27%, the total cost of electric generation by 6% and the oil internal market by 16%