Capacity Expansion Planning Revisited: Assessing the Impact of Electric Vehicles on the European Power System

Environmental awareness has led to challenging greenhouse gas reduction goals. Consequently, an expansion of generation units based on renewable energy sources as well as the electrification of consumers in other energy sectors have moved into the focus of energy policy. However, the impact of additional consumers, in particular electric vehicles, on the European power system remains vague. Therefore, this paper addresses that question by performing capacity expansion planning considering an increased penetration of electric vehicles and varying possibilities of their load management. The results show that (i) the additional load of electric vehicles causes significant expansions of new thermal power plants, and that (ii) flexibility in the charging process reduces the need for additional generation capacity by 55 GW. The merit of bidirectional charging strategies in contrast to unidirectional charging is, however, relatively low.