Electric vehicles: a key driver of decarbonization for buildings and energy systems?
For an eternity, electrification of the transportation system seemed unthinkable. Overshadowed by convenience, speed, and availability of the gas fueling infrastructure, electric vehicles (EV) only existed in science fictions, while internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles enjoyed an unrivaled status as the go-to technology. Today, advancements in battery technologies, combined with a need to address the changing climate and energy insecurity, has turned the table in EVs’ favor.
Current electricity grid is designed largely for unilaterally-transactive system, relying on bulk centralized generation covering large areas—one extremely dependent on fossil-fuels—to power buildings and urban infrastructures. More recently, the adoption of renewable energy that generates intermittently and modestly in decentralized fashion—with many bi-lateral energy transactions over smaller areas—had become popular. This fundamental shift from centralized to decentralized model poses many uncertainties for the energy system. While signaling the end of an era for the ICE, EVs will help mitigate challenges stemming from said uncertainties and play a key role in tomorrow’s energy system, by strengthening and reimagining the existing electricity grid to one that is rooted in decarbonization and resilience.
In no particular order, below are three of many avenues that EVs will transform the buildings and energy systems:
Overall expansion and modernization of the electricity grid
The continued growth in adoption of EVs is inevitable. This means that the electricity grid will need to expand to support the growing EV charging network, meet increasing electricity demand, and experience likely changes to its loadshape however small or indifferent it may be. Transportation sector is responsible for 37% of the global greenhouse gas emissions primarily from fossil fuel combustion. To electrify the world’s transportation fleet will require a gargantuan effort of all kinds from businesses, governments, and professionals of all disciplines to enable.
How and where should we monitor the grid to ensure its reliability with all these cars charging? What are the contingency strategies in case of a system instability? How do we prevent system failures while enabling convenience and continued adoption of EVs? Whilst the adoption of EVs do not in itself address these questions, increased electricity demand, changing loadshape, and technical capabilities afforded by EVs in supporting the energy system (which will be discussed soon) will help accelerate research, development, and deployment of expansion and modernization strategies for the electricity grid.
In fact, many governments are already taking the route of requiring EV charging infrastructure to transition the transportation sector away from fossil fuels, supported by substantiating evidences from research conducted around the world. As such requirements apply to buildings, many residential, commercial, and industrial facilities are obliged to have EV charging stations (conduit installed and outlet available with charging equipment installed), and/or EV-ready (conduit installed and outlet available) spaces, and/or EV-capable (conduit installed with spare panel capacity) spaces, to help ease the pain that EV owners experience with refueling. Through implementation of such measures that will eventually require upgrades to the electricity grid to support, EVs may be one of the single largest driver of electricity grid’s expansion and modernization.
Proliferation of distributed energy resources (DER)
The change from centralized to decentralized (i.e. distributed) generation, transmission, and distribution of electric power is a tectonic shift. Although existing electricity grid can be made to work with decentralized systems, it was really designed for the centralized model. Careful planning, upgrades, and operation of the centralized grid to adopt decentralized systems is required, and this is mainly due to one difference between the two models: current.
Alternating current (AC) is primarily used today because of its high efficiency when transmitted over long distances at high voltages, and the ease at which this can be done. On the other hand, direct current (DC) is generally none of those, and is therefore resorted for smaller circuits (e.g. microgrids, electronic devices) or specific use cases (e.g. HVDC transmission). With centralized generation, electricity that gets generated—which is, in fact, always DC—has to be converted to AC then “stepped up” to high voltages (e.g. 168kV) for efficient transmission over long distances, which then has to be “stepped down” to lower voltages (e.g. 120V) for distribution and end use. With decentralized generation though, such as in the case of most solar panel installations, the source of power generation is frequently local (i.e. on the roof of my apartment). Therefore, conversion from DC to AC and stepping up for long-distance transmission is not always necessary, except for the purposes of connecting distributed generation resources to the typical grid via inverters.
The complexities stemming from current types as well as the number of generation resources, technologies, locations, transmission requirements, et cetera all contribute to uncertainties of the electricity grid. How will the electricity grid behave when we have intermittent renewable generation like solar, wind, and others spread everywhere and connected to the grid? Where will all the excess electricity go during times of overgeneration? How can these overgenerated electricity be leveraged or stored for use during undergeneration? This is where EVs may come in to serve as a battery storage—like Tesla’s Powerwall—which can double up to support grid operations by providing ancillary services (e.g. voltage, current, and phase regulation, emergency power dispatch) through Vehicle to Grid (V2G) technologies while reducing energy bills.
Electrification of buildings and end uses
Currently, the largest hurdle to building electrification is cost, due to technology being expensive outright; lack of production and availability; and lack of familiarity among contractors. Since usage of higher-powered EV charging equipment and home appliances frequently require additional panel capacity and subsequent panel and service upgrades, environmental benefits from avoided greenhouse gases and pollutants emissions are difficult to realize for most households, and especially for members of disadvantaged communities (DAC) that suffer respiratory illnesses from fossil fuel combustion. Unfortunately, EVs and many electric appliances, such as water and space heaters, are generally more expensive than their fossil fuel counterparts as well. However, increased EV adoption along with requirements for all-electric buildings and EV-charging parking spaces can (and will) make electrification of end uses more economical through economies of scale, avoided retrofit costs for new buildings, and increased availability and access to buildings with ample electrical service.
In addition, once initial financing barriers can be overcome (via mechanisms such as incentives, financial instruments, and affordability credits that have been or are being developed), EVs present salient financial opportunities. In combination with net metering (NEM), feed-in tariffs, and net billing policies that compensate distributed generators and ancillary service providers, EVs—its batteries—will enable ordinary people to make extra income and/or reduce their financial burden from energy costs. Further, this will incentivize the use of electric devices while moving away from natural gas, which is slated to surpass electricity prices due to global energy volatilities and increasing concentration of operational costs on smaller group of users due to distribution infrastructure decommissioning.
Decarbonization of buildings and energy systems is not a serial process. Since their components build on each other synergistically, everything—the entire market—has to move forward simultaneously. The cost of decarbonizing is a large issue, but this is the classic chicken-or-the-egg scenario in which the immediate expenditure is required for future savings. Likewise, EVs will remain expensive and niche in the short term, but its continued adoption will be key to render decarbonization economical for the long haul.