Exploring the potential of rental electric vehicles for vehicle-to-grid: A data-driven approach

Vehicle-to-Grid (V2G) is a promising technology in electrification of transportation. Previous studies of V2G tended to be focused on private Electric Vehicles (EVs), paying little attention to rental EVs. In response, this paper proposed a data-driven approach to quantify the potential contribution of rental EVs to smart grid through V2G, using a one-month GPS trajectory dataset containing 967 rental EVs in Beijing in January 2019. The data-driven approach was tested within several what-if' scenarios in Beijing, which considered availability of infrastructures with different charging/discharging speeds. The results suggested that the increased availability of infrastructure and charging/discharging speed could increase both charging and discharging demands. On overage, a 10% increase in the probability of getting EVs charged gives rise to a 13% increase in charging demand, and a 28% increase in discharging demand. Given that rental EV users can get access to infrastructure anytime and anywhere with a charging/discharging speed of 3.0 km/min (i.e., 3 km electric range per minute), it was estimated that the total daily charging and discharging demands, on average, were 1,860,234 kWh and 1,467,044 kWh, respectively, which were around 3.12% and 2.46% of the total daily residential electricity demand. Furthermore, the increased availability and charging/discharging speed can also lead to a smaller gap between the charging cost per vehicle per day and discharging reward per vehicle per day, bringing more economic benefits to rental EV users through V2G.

Automated summary

The study on the data of rental EVs in Beijing in January 2019 showed that increasing infrastructure availability and charging/discharging speed can boost both charging and discharging demands. A 10% increase in EV charging probability leads to a 13% increase in charging demand and a 28% increase in discharging demand. Overall, rental EVs have the potential to contribute significantly to smart grid through V2G technology.