Flexibility of Electric Vehicle Chargers in Residential, Workplace, and Public Locations Based on Real-World Data

Electric Vehicles (EV) are becoming important players in the energy transition. These vehicles can provide flexible capacity to the electrical grid for maintaining the energy balance. Then, important challenges appear when defining EV flexibility. EV flexibility is usually defined before providing the energy service, ignoring the real-time power dispatch. However, in this paper, we define the evolution of the upward and downward EV flexibility capacities, considering the real-time power dispatch. The flexibility is computed with the energy that can be shifted into the service time. The flexibility is evaluated in three different charging strategies that are designed to avoid the rebound effect. The strategies are applied to EV chargers in the residential, workplace, and public sectors. Three real databases of EV charging events are assessed, one per sector. Simulation results present that the residential sector has more flexibility while the public sector has lower flexibility. This research allows an understanding of the real flexibility each sector can provide to the electrical grid operators taking into account the hours and capacities information.