INSIGHTS
Shaping the Direction of Residential EV Load Management
In 2021 PG&E wanted to understand potential opportunities to incentivize and scale residential EV load management technologies in their service territory. We worked with PG&E to complete a study comprised of three phases of research and analysis: gather and select, test, and scale.
The “gather and select” effort comprised of collecting information on the EV charging market and capabilities of EV charging providers and third parties in implementing strategies to remotely control residential EV charging to support the design and execution of a technology field test.
The “test” effort included the execution of a technology field test of that explored the effectiveness of curtailing EV charging via vehicle telematics and by controlling the charger directly through a series of nine DR events and an assessment of the load impacts of each event.
For the “scale” effort, the Team disaggregated EV charging patterns from AMI data for over 70,000 residential EV owners in PG&E’s service territory, developed charging clusters based on similar patterns of customer charging behavior, and calculated the resource potential for these clusters. Opinion Dynamics also conducted a survey with 3,000 residential EV owners that revealed their preferences for incentives to upgrade their existing charger or enroll in a DR program with their EV.
KEY INSIGHTS
- At the time, vehicle telematics deployment as a load control method was nascent, this study demonstrated that managing load via telematics was just as effective as managing load via the charger and that customers were willing to enroll in an EV load management program for a much lower incentive using their existing chargers.
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- PG&E decided to move forward with deploying vehicle telematics on a larger scale and they are currently running a Resilient Charging Pilot that leverages vehicle telematics technology to help customers pre-charge their EVs before power outages.
- EV load management provided minimal load reduction potential during peak hours, as most customers were already charging off-peak.
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- PG&E decided not to move forward with offering an incentive to offset the purchase of chargers to manage peak demand and instead focused on educating customers to charge during the middle of the day when solar is abundant.
- The greatest residential EV charging load is occurring overnight and PG&E may experience future risks to the distribution system if clusters of residential EV drivers charge at the same time, regardless of whether they charge on or off-peak.
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- PG&E leveraged findings from this study to inform their Vehicle Grid Integration Roadmap, which has an emphasis on deploying targeted solutions to address distribution system constraints caused by increased EV adoption.
WHY IT MATTERS
Best practices gleaned from this study have been cited in regulatory filings and used to inform the design and evaluation of managed charging programs across the US.
Insights Highlighted
DIVE DEEPER
Learn more about the PG&E program findings and explore the data insights in the full report.
Interested in what we can do for you?
Please feel free to contact our resident expert!
Hilary Polis
Director of Transportation Electrification
hpolis@opiniondynamics.com
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