Report on Vehicle-Renewable Integration for BMW of North America

Through 2017 and 2018, Olivine has teamed with BMW of North America and Pacific Gas & Electric on the Total Charge Management (TCM) project with funding from the California Energy Commission’s EPIC program. The purpose of the project is to explore the benefits and opportunities to manage electric vehicle charging across multiple charging events to maximize vehicle load flexibility and provide benefits to vehicle drivers and to the electric grid.

In the recently released interim report, the team explored optimizing the vehicle charging schedules, both at home and away from home, to maximize energy intake during periods of excess renewable supply. Vehicle charging patterns were optimized using PG&E’s forecast of renewable energy excess supply – a data source that is also used in PG&E’s Excess Supply Pilot (XSP) – and Olivine’s vehicle-grid integration (VGI) optimization engine, which is part of the Olivine DER Platform.

The report shows how vehicle drivers can shift vehicle charging into times when excess renewable energy – primarily solar and wind generation – can be absorbed and stored in the vehicles.

Report findings:

Excess supply from renewables will become increasingly significant in the future. As a flexible load, EV charging can be shifted to better align with excess supply of renewables to provide benefits to the grid, such as better balance of demand and excess renewable energy. New incentive mechanisms or improved pricing signals may help realize additional benefits. EV rate design and smart, managed charging can complement one another to capture the full value of balancing several important considerations, including and beyond excess renewable generation, such as energy cost and carbon intensity, transmission and distribution grid conditions, equity, and customer behavior.

The full report is available here: Olivine Vehicle-Renewable Integration: Report for BMW Total Charge Management.