2016 China International Conference on Electricity Distribution (CICED 2016) Xi’an, 10-13 Aug, 2016

A Review on Electric Vehicles and Renewable Energy

Synergies in Smart Grid

Jianzhuo Dai1, Ming Dong1, Rixin Ye1, Ao Ma1 and Wenyu Yang2

(1. State Key Laboratory of Electrical Insulation and Power Equipment

Xi’an Jiaotong University
2.State Grid Shaanxi Electric Power Corporation)
Xi’an, Shaanxi

Abstract—Nowadays, global energy system and environment emissions. At present, renewable energies could be used for
are facing enormous challenges. In the context of energy power generation comprise wind, solar, and biomass energy,
LQWHUQHWWUDQVSRUWÀHHWLVWUDQVLWLRQLQJWRHOHFWULFSOXJLQDQG etc. The wind and solar energy utilization in electric vehicle
fuel cell vehicles and energy utilization are greener. The electric FKDUJLQJDUHPRUHIHDVLEOHLQÀXHQFHGE\WKHUHVWULFWLRQRIQDWXUH
vehicles and renewable energy synergies in smart grid are of condition, energy density, development costs, technical level and
great significance for ensuring energy security, preventing air SRZHUJHQHUDWLRQHI¿FLHQF\HWF
pollution and promoting energy saving and emission reduction. With the advent of Energy Internet combining with new
But due to the randomness, intermittent and power electronic energy technology and information technology, the energy using
of renewable energy, the synergies of electric vehicles and will shift to renewable energy sources, the transport fleet will
renewable energy are full of challenges. Firstly, the architecture transition to electric vehicles and the internet technology will be
of smart grid and the interaction between electric vehicles and used to transform the power grid. A smart grid architecture will
renewable energy are depicted in this paper. Then, the impact of promote the synergies of EVs and RESs [3].
electric vehicles and renewable energy development is analyzed
and according to the specific problem, the key technique II. SMART GRID
including smart charging, coordinated scheduling and energy
management is investigated. What is more, the economic and A new smart grid gradually formed with the incorporation of
environmental impacts of synergies are analyzed. Finally, the EVs. When EVs are regarded as load, optimal charging can be
existing problems in the current development are discussed and achieved by technical and economic means to arrange charging
the future directions for electric vehicles and renewable energy WLPHVRDVWRDFKLHYHSHDNORDGVKLIWLQJLPSURYHWKHHI¿FLHQF\
DUHEULHÀ\JLYHQ RIWKHV\VWHPDQGUHGXFHWKHLQÀXHQFHRQJULGVHFXULW\:KHQ
EVs are regarded as distributed energy storage units, they can
Index Terms—Smart grid, renewable energy source, electric supply power to grid so as to improve the safe reliability of
vehicle, energy internet power system. Two way communication between EVs and
grid can be realized by V2G technology. Compared with the
I.INTRODUCTION traditional grid, a large quantities of distributed generations
using RESs as fuel are applied in smart grid. For the intermittent
Nowadays, global energy system and environment are
characteristic of distributed energy such as wind power,
facing great challenges due to the greenhouse gases emitted by
SKRWRYROWDLFFHOOLWLVGLI¿FXOWIRUWKHVHJHQHUDWLRQVWREDODQFH
fossil fuel combustion. Electric vehicles (EVs) are becoming
the load without the adjustment of smart grid.
popular because of their potential for reducing fuel consumption,
The architecture of smart grid is shown in Figure 1.
emissions and ability to increase the penetration of renewable
Advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) is an electronic
energy sources˄RESs˅ into the transportation sector. By 2020,
equipment which can record and obtain the real-time information
WKHTXDQWLWLHVRI(9VZLOOUHDFK¿YHPLOOLRQLQ&KLQDDQGWKDWRI
of user electricity usage [4]. Home Automation Networks
global EVs will more than 30 million [1].
(HANs) plays the role of functional entity that allows the access
Charging demand will increase significantly with the
to metering devices and message transfers with the home display
development of EVs. 75% - 80% of electricity in our country
devices [5]. One major feature of smart grid is that users can
are generated by coal combustion, so carbon emission of EVs
be able to interact with power grid actively. Users can obtain
charged by grid is not less than that of traditional fuel cars
electricity usage and fees to decide the charging mode of EVs by
[2]. Therefore, increasing the penetration of renewable energy
AMI which also contributes to the synergies of EVs and RESs
sources into grid will be the most effective way to reduce carbon

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 2016 China International Conference on Electricity Distribution (CICED 2016) Xi’an, 10-13 Aug, 2016

Fig. 1 Smart grid architecture

III. KEY TECHNICAL ISSUES dynamic programming method. The results show that smart
charging strategies for EVs can improve the utilization of RESs
Many researchers studied the feasibility and practicality and reduce the impact of load instability on the power system.
of combination of EVs and RESs. Abundant renewable energy The smart charging strategies proposed in [10-12] can reduce the
provides a powerful support for electric vehicle charging. charging cost of wind power connected to the grid and maximize
Reference [5] analyzed the integrated mode and adaptability of WKHHFRQRPLFEHQH¿WVRI(9VXVHUVDQGSRZHUHQWHUSULVHZKLFK
5(6VDQG(9VFKDUJLQJDQGGLVFKDUJLQJIDFLOLWLHV7KH\¿QGLW is helpful for policy-making of EVs interacting with RESs.
LVIHDVLEOHWRJLYHPLFURJULGRSWLPDOFRQ¿JXUDWLRQWRFRPELQH B. Synergistic dispatch technology
RESs and EVs. The application of the integrated system in Large scale EVs and RESs accessing to the grid makes
microgrid will achieve the win-win goal of synergy effect. the grid transformed from traditional centralized control to the
But due to the intermittent and random of RESs, when they distributed control. The randomness of owners charging behavior
are incorporated into the power grid at the same time, many and the intermittent of renewable energy generation bring new
problems will occur such as power grid voltage deviation, challenges to the adjustment ability of power grid. Therefore, it
IUHTXHQF\GHYLDWLRQKDUPRQLFLQMHFWLRQDQGYROWDJHÀXFWXDWLRQ is necessary to investigate synergistic dispatch issues of EVs and
and flicker, etc. Reference [6] discussed the impacts when PV RESs generation.
arrays are used to charge EVs. The results show that PV can 7KHLQÀXHQFHRIWKHGLIIXVLRQRISKRWRYROWDLFV\VWHPVDQG
only meet the demand of the electric car charging in a short time. EVs on electricity demand was analyzed in [13].
Reference [7] proposed to use energy storage system to absorb The results show that the diffusion of PV decreases the
the excess electricity from renewable energy generations in total electrical load of the grid by 19.7%. Synergistic dispatch
charging stations so that electricity can be provided to customers of EVs and RESs can reduce the generated energy of other
continuously when the generation is not enough. traditional energy sources. Coordinated energy dispatching in
Although the energy storage technology can improve the mircogrid with wind power generation and EVs was studied in
intermittency of renewable energy, high cost of investment is [14].The result demonstrates that the energy dispatch based on
needed and the schedule of RESs will delay. Under the smart interruptible and variable-rate energy dispatching can achieve
grid, the development of intelligent charging technology, better matching between power generation and demands A
synergistic dispatch technology and energy management multi-objective coordinated scheduling model taking into
WHFKQRORJ\ZLOOUHGXFHWKHLQÀXHQFHRQJULGPDGHE\(9VDQG account the grid-connectible EVs, wind and solar generation at
RESs. the same time was set up in [15]. By arranging the charging and
A. Intelligent charging technology GLVFKDUJLQJWLPHUHDVRQDEO\WKHRXWSXWÀXFWXDWLRQRI5(6VFDQ
Intelligent charging technology is used to adjust the charging EHVXSSUHVVHGHIIHFWLYHO\EHVLGHVLWLVDOVREHQH¿WVWRXVHUV
time and speed according to power supply. C. Energy management technology
A model of a standalone solar-based home EV charging A controllable V2G energy management system was
station is proposed in [8]. The authors propose various EV proposed in [16] which can reduce the intermittent of solar
charging control topologies and obtain the optimal charging energy and increase the income of suppliers and EVs owners.
strategy. A case was analyzed in [9]. V2G technology can be A smart charging station is proposed in [17]. The charging of
utilized to solve the intermittency issue of renewable energy the EVs is controlled in such a way that the impact of charging
sources and results show that intelligent charging technology during peak load period is not felt on the grid. The power
can improve fluctuation problem in distributed grid caused by needed to charge the plug in hybrids comes from grid-connected
renewable energy power generation effectively. RESs utilization photovoltaic generation or the utility or both. The three way
status and EVs charging characteristics are investigated in [10]. interaction between the PV, EVs and the grid ensures optimal
An intelligent charging model was established using heuristic usage of available power charging time and grid stability.

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 2016 China International Conference on Electricity Distribution (CICED 2016) Xi’an, 10-13 Aug, 2016

The EVs can be divided into several groups according to by the integration of grid, RESs and EVs. For EVs owners,
their real-time V2G participation situation and charge-discharge their activity in charging EVs with RESs is driven by charging
mark by control center of distributed storage. The strategy of fee. EVs can be charged and discharged as controllable loads.
distributed energy storage can improve dispatch property of If we can control the charge behavior of EVs, making them
RESs and reduces EVs’ charging and discharging switching discharged at high electricity price and charged at low one, the
times. EVs owners can save 91.6% charging fee [22].
The development of technologies mentioned above can For power grid enterprise, they pay more attention to
match load and power fluctuation of RESs generation well, generating cost, total life cycle costs and transmission cost.
improve equivalent load rate and reduce the influence of When the penetration of EVs and RESs is high, energy
intermittent of RESs. consumption and storage cost will decrease. The total
generation cost can reduce 20% [23].
IV. BENEFIT ANALYSIS
V. CONCLUSION AND PROSPECT
$(FRORJLFDOEHQH¿WV
The most of the power is generated by coal combustion in In this paper, the impact on grid, key technologies
traditional grid, so charging the EVs with RESs will be the most and economy and environment benefits are reviewed and
effective way to reduce emissions. analyzed. We still need to improve the performance of existing
The carbon emissions of EVs charging station based on technologies in the later work.
PV in working place was studied in [18]. The results show that A. The algorithm optimization of control scheduling
charging EVs with solar energy can reduce 0.6 ton CO2 per Most researchers mainly study charging control method,
car per year which can reduce carbon emissions by 55% than coordinated dispatch and energy management by optimization
charging at home at night. If optimal control strategies are used algorithm. But soft-computing method has some weakness,
to dispatch the EVs and PV, another 0.36 ton CO2 will reduced. such as limited penetration of EVs and RESs. If the quantities
Figure 2 shows CO2 emissions due to different time of charging of sources and EVs are large, the control rules algorithm can
and control algorithms. be very complicated and requires a lot of running time. These
problems need to be solved in the future.
B. The use of EVs batteries
EVs can be regard as distributed energy storage units to
store the surplus electricity generated by RESs and discharge
to make a profit when the grid is in low load. However, the
way mentioned above will increase charging and discharging
cycles of batteries. As we know, the capacity of Li battery
will be greatly diminished with the increase of charging and
discharging cycle. Therefore, prolonging the service life of the
battery needs to be studied further and the balance strategy of
EDWWHU\VHUYLFHOLIHDQGSUR¿WVQHHGWREHSXWIRUZDUG
C. The formulation of incentive policy
7KH9*WHFKQRORJ\SOD\VDVLJQL¿FDQWUROHLQV\QHUJLHV
of EVs and RESs. EVs users actively participating contribute
to the realization of the V2G technology. However EVs
users involved also care for disadvantages, such as battery
degradation. If EVs users don't want to participate into
Fig. 2 CO2 emissions due to different time of charging and interaction with the grid, the V2G does not make sense. As
control algorithms a consequence, the active participation of EVs users need
incentive policies supporting.
%(FRQRPLFEHQH¿W In the future, the synergies of EVs and RESs need a
The synergies of EVs and RESs can reduce the carbon smarter grid, a storage system of large capacity and a better
HPLVVLRQVZKLFKEHQH¿WWKHHQYLURQPHQWPDQ\UHVHDUFKHUVDOVR business structure. It is expected that this review can help
IRFXVRQHFRQRPLFEHQH¿WIRUFKDUJLQJSURYLGHUV(9VRZQHUV investigators have a clear understanding of synergies of EVs
and power grid enterprises. DQG5(6VDQGFRQWULEXWHPRUHWRWKLV¿HOG
For charging providers, the development of EVs and RESs is
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