NRDC Study Finds Managed Charging of Electric Vehicles Can Help Shanghai Improve Power Grid Efficiency

2016-09-23

 

On September 23, 2016, NRDC together with the Energy Research Institute (ERI) of China’s National Development and Reform Commission released a report, The Potential of Grid Integration of Electric Vehicles in Shanghai. The report analyzes the potential and economics of using the electric vehicle (EV) charging load as a demand response resource in Shanghai and finds that in a high growth scenario, EVs could potentially reach 43% of vehicle sales market share by 2030. With 2.45 million EV users, the charging demand could reach 19.6TWh, composing 11.2% of Shanghai’s electricity consumption by 2030. With managed charging (i.e. shifting charging to off-peak hours), EVs could serve as a grid side resource and potentially help Shanghai reduce its peak-valley power grid utilization gap by 4.87 GW. The consequent amount of electricity shifted in a year is roughly equivalent to the annual consumption of a million people. When empowered by a time-of-use tariff structure, managed charging could also save up to 81% of charging costs. This research report was developed with full support from the Shanghai Municipal Commission of Economy and Information, Shanghai Electric Company and the other member organizations of the Shanghai Demand Response Implementation Team. Chinese experts from ERI, Tsinghua University, State Grid Energy Research Institute, GIZ, Environmental Defense Fund, EV100 and many others participated in the report release event and discussed the value and impact of the report findings as well as suggestions for future research related to demand-side resource integration in China. The report release event was covered by Xinhua News Agency and key industry media.

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