The Potential of an EV and Intelligent Load Management for a Smart home with Integrated PV and Battery

Abstract

With the increase in home energy consumption due to the electrification of house heating and charging of electric vehicles (EVs), the self-sufficiency and reduced impact on the utility grid from a house has become a more exciting topic. In combination with the price decrease for lithium-ion batteries the potential for storing PV generated energy in batteries has become more beneficial. However, the price for batteries is still a large part of the total investment of a PV system with home battery. Correct sizing of the home battery and PV installation is essential to reduce investment costs and as a result a decrease in payback time. Besides the correct sizing of the home battery and PV installation, these two parameters are also influenced when using an EV in the energy management system of the house. EVs have large batteries (thirty to hundred kWh) to give the EVs an extented driving range. The average EV owner does not use the full capacity of the battery on a regular day. The unused capacity of an EV battery has the potential to reduce the home battery capacity when used as a storage facility. To reduce the impact of the upcoming changes in house consumption, this thesis investigates load shifting in combination with a charged EV as addition to the house with integrated PV and battery. The results show that a charged EV can have a positive contribution to a house on grid energy autonomy, peak shaving capability and electricity cost. In combination with load shifting the benefits are further increased.