Value of optimal trip and charging scheduling of commercial electric vehicle fleets with Vehicle-to-Grid in future low inertia systems

The electrification of transport is seen as an important step in the global decarbonisation agenda. With such a large expected load on the power system from electric vehicles (EVs), it is important to coordinate charging in order to balance the supply and demand for electricity. Bidirectional charging, enabled through Vehicle-to-Grid (V2G) technology, will unlock significant storage capacity from stationary EVs that are plugged in. To take this concept a step further, this paper quantifies the potential revenues to be gained by a commercial EV fleet operator from simultaneously scheduling its trips on a day-ahead basis, as well as its charging. This allows the fleet to complete its trips (with user defined trip length and distance), while taking advantage of fluctuating energy and ancillary service prices. A mathematical framework for optimal trip scheduling is proposed, formulated as a mixedinteger linear program, and is applied to several relevant scenarios of the present and future British electricity system. It is demonstrated that an optimal journey start time can increase the revenue of commercial fleets by up to 38% in summer and 12% in winter. This means a single EV from the maintenance fleet can make additional annual revenue of up to 729 pound. Flexible trip schedules are more valuable in the summer because keeping EVs plugged in during peak solar output will benefit the grid and the fleet operators the most. It was also found that a fleet of 5,000 EVs would result in the equivalent CO2 of removing one Combined Cycle Gas Turbine from the system. The significant increase in revenue and carbon savings show that this approach is worth investigating for potential future application.

Automated summary

This study quantifies the potential revenues that commercial EV fleet operators can gain from simultaneously scheduling their trips and charging, and explores the impact of this approach on the present and future British electricity system. It is found that optimal trip scheduling can significantly increase commercial fleet revenue, with flexible trip scheduling being more valuable in the summer and leading to carbon savings.