Impact of Renewable Energy and Dynamic Pricing on Electric Vehicles Charging

In recent years, the total number of electric vehicles (EVs) has increased rapidly with renewable energy penetration. EVs' significant adoption to any region will offer both benefits and risks to the power system. On the one hand, the increasing and uncoordinated EVs charging will burden the aging power delivery infrastructure. On the other hand, EVs' batteries can be a very efficient power storage system and flexible load for power grids if EVs' charging and discharging are coordinated with renewable energy generation and power system constraints. Currently, most public and workplace charging facilities provide free or flat charging tariffs. However, the free or flat rate charging business model cannot be sustained when EV penetration is high. Using real-time control strategies, like dynamic electricity pricing to control EVs' charging and discharging patterns, is a viable way to avoid costly infrastructure investments. This paper investigates the impact of renewable energy and dynamic pricing on electric vehicle charging. The EV charging cost is simulated under four charging strategies: residential tariff, commercial tariff, commercial tariff with rooftop solar PV energy, and pure solar PV energy with dynamic pricing. The simulation results indicate that using renewable energy and dynamic pricing can reduce EV charging costs.