Introduction

  • BEVs (Battery Electric Vehicles) can reduce \(CO_2\) and prevent air pollution.
  • But managing BEV charging can become a problem for the grid.
  • Smart charging can help, but depends on user acceptance.

SMC - Supplier Managed Charging

  • SMC smooths out overnight EV charging demand.
  • Electricity demand is controlled below capacity threshold.

SMC - Supplier Managed Charging

  • SMC smooths out overnight EV charging demand.
  • Electricity demand is controlled below capacity threshold.

V2G - Vehicle-to-Grid

Research Questions

  1. Sensitivity: How do changes in smart charging program features influence BEV owners’ willingness to opt in?

  2. Market Share: Under what conditions will BEV owners be more willing to opt in to smart charging programs?

Conjoint survey to collect BEV owners’ willingness.

Mixed logit model to evaluate utilities for simulations.

Survey Design with formr

Survey Components

  1. Conjoint Questions:
    1. Monetary Incentives
    2. Charging Limitations
    3. Flexibility
  2. Demographic Questions:
    1. BEV Ownership & Usage
    2. Personal & Household Info

Conjoint Attributes Sample

No. Attributes Range
1 Enrollment Cash $50 to $300
2 Monthly Cash $2 to $20
3 Monthly Override 0 to 5
4 Min Battery 20% to 40%
5 Guaranteed Battery 60% to 80%

Conjoint Question Explained

A Sample Conjoint Question

  1. You are provided with different sets of attributes.
  2. You choose one set instead of one attribute.

SMC Programs

Attributes

No. Attributes Range
1 Enrollment Cash $50 to $300
2 Monthly Cash $2 to $20
3 Monthly Override 0 to 5
4 Min Battery 20% to 40%
5 Guaranteed Battery 60% to 80%

Sample Program

Attributes Values
Enrollment Cash $300
Monthly Cash $20
Monthly Override 5

V2G Programs

Attributes

No. Attributes Range
1 Enrollment Cash $50 to $300
2 Occurrence Cash $2 to $20
3 Monthly Occurrence 1 to 4
4 Lower Bound 20% to 40%
5 Guaranteed Battery 60% to 80%

Sample Program

Attributes Values
Enrollment Cash $300
Occurrence Cash $20
Monthly Occurrence 1

Sample SMC Question

Sample V2G Question

Survey Fielding

  • Meta: Facebook, Messenger, Instagram - Voluntary
  • 4 months’ of fielding from March to July in 2024
  • 858 results after filtering

Survey Results - Top 10 BEV

Survey Results - Demographics

Survey Results - Willingness to Participate

Mixed Logit Models

\[ \begin{align*} u_j = v_j + \epsilon_j = \beta' x + \epsilon_j \qquad P_j = \frac{e^{v_j}}{\sum_{k=1}^{J} e^{v_k}} \end{align*} \]

SMC Estimates

V2G Estimates

Without compensation, users will not participate.

Sensitivity Analysis

Sensitivity Analysis

Steeper slope indicates higher sensitivity.

Tornado Plots - SMC

Tornado Plots - V2G

Tornado Plots - Summary

  1. Monetary incentives are important.
  2. Recurring incentives are more important than one-time.
  3. For SMC, range anxiety is vital, since it happens regularly.
  4. For V2G, usability is compromised.
  5. Diminishing returns exist.

Market Simulation for SMC

Market Simulation for V2G

Future Work

Data Collection

  • Other than social media, use survey panels to collect more responses.
  • Increase data size from 800 to 2000.

Modeling

  • Subgroup analysis considering heterogeneity.
  • More modeling techniques such as Apollo Choice Modeling.

Simulation

  • Apply customer preferences to grid simulation.
  • Estimate benefit-cost trade-offs for utilities.

Pingfan Hu - IEEE VPPC 2024