Forecasting the Flexibility Potential of Electric Vehicles Limited by Individual Charging Targets

The future massive integration of electric vehicles into the grid represents not only an additional load, but also a decentralized flexible resource that can be used in aggregated form by grid operators to provide system services. In reality, however, the charging of electric vehicles is not fully flexible, but highly dependent on usage behavior. In order to consider the resulting limitations when determining the flexibility potential, this paper presents an approach to include virtual charging management systems in the generation of synthetic charging profiles. These decide for each electric vehicle individually to what extent it can meet a flexibility request without violating its individual charging targets. It is assumed that depending on the selected time window of the flexibility request, the flexibility potential of a virtual charge management system is restricted to different degrees. To investigate the validity of this assumption, two types of flexibility windows were identified, one aiming to increase the load in a fixed period of time and the other aiming to reduce it. The advantages and disadvantages of the developed approach are presented using an exemplary case study to verify its usability for grid operators.