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Khardenavis, Amaiya Niranjan

University of British Columbia

The current climate change targets have augmented the transition towards carbon-neutral transportation systems. Hence, electric vehicles (EVs) are viewed as the most desirable instruments to reduce the automobile industry’s dependence on fossil fuels as they can integrate energy from clean sources for transportation. The electricity grid with a high penetration of renewable energy can enable emission-free travel using state-of-the-art EVs. The extensive EV demands at peak times and increased household/workplace electricity use due to population growth have led to higher utility infrastructure investments. Further, the adoption of the smart power grid concept has seen EVs being explored as energy hubs since they can be connected to the power grid with the implementation of the vehicle to grid (V2G) concept. EVs interacting with the power grid based on scheduled demand requirements can have a significant impact on society. Cars are parked 95 percent of the time; thus, with proper design and the correct infrastructure, parked and plugged-in EVs might become mass power banks, stabilizing future electric grids. They can also power households and integrate renewable energy with storage systems. However, the successful implementation and widespread adoption of V2G presents a multi-faceted problem. Through life cycle thinking, this study explores the potential opportunities and challenges of the V2G technology and examines its technological, economic, and policy-based impacts. Accordingly, this study proposes a comprehensive framework to plan and develop mobile energy hubs considering the temporal variation of EV recharging demands. Using recharging characteristics, life cycle costs travel behaviors, and geographic data as inputs to the model, the proposed framework was applied to a city in British Columbia, Canada. The outcomes of this research would be beneficial to governments, municipalities, electric utilities, and developers to understand the dynamically changing scenario in transport electrification and make decisions on climate change mitigation programs.

Text

2021-08-11

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International

http://hdl.handle.net/2429/79265

Mechanical Engineering

University of British Columbia

UBCO

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/