A new study conducted by Jackson Associates of 5,000 Southern California Edison customers' hourly loads, commuting behavior, and potential electric vehicle (EV) ownership shows that EV batteries used as a utility virtual power plant (VPP) can shift the entire residential peak load to nighttime hours with only 10% EV market saturation. Download the four-page whitepaper here.
"We were surprised both at the relatively small 10% EV market saturation required to completely clip the SCE residential peak and the large annual savings of $560/EV per customer even after paying for nighttime recharging," said President of Jackson Associates and author of the report Dr. Jerry Jackson. "These results suggest that utilities should shift from defensive "managed charging" strategies to an offense strategy that draws on EV battery storage during peak hours with overnight recharging."
According to the research firm, this study provides the first publicly available EV virtual power plant analysis based on individual utility customer's hourly loads and commuting behavior. SCE customer data were drawn from the widely used MAISY Utility Customer Hourly Loads Database. Note: Benefits of an EV VPP vary by utility and require analysis of individual customer residential hourly loads, commuting behavior, and relative cost of on-peak and off-peak power.