Impact Assessment of Frequency Support by Electric Vehicles: Great Britain Scenario 2025

A desire to reduce environmental pollution coupled with advances in battery technology are some of the drivers for the massive growth in the use of Electric Vehicles (EVs) worldwide. The objective of this paper is to assess the impact that large groups of EVs, connected to frequency-responsive charging stations, have on the frequency response of the Great Britain (GB) power system during a sudden generation loss event. The assessment considers the minimum expected system's rotational inertia and the predicted EV charging demand in GB for the year 2025. The developed model employs a representative block for the EV clusters which are formed based on the type of frequency support service they can provide. The effects of the expected EV penetration, type of EV charging, charger delay and sensitivity of the control are evaluated. OPAL-RT has been used to run the simulation and perform the assessment. The simulation results highlighted the positive effects of employing EVs as a distributed energy storage system (DESS) in regards to the system frequency response (SFR).