Advanced VGI Control to Maximize Battery Life and Use of Second-Life Batteries to Increase Grid Service and Renewable Power Penetration
Demonstrating a cost-effective, scalable approach to deploying second-life electric vehicle batteries.
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Recipient
Berkeley, CA
Recipient Location
9th
Senate District
14th
Assembly District
$2,045,000
Amount Spent
Active
Project Status
Project Update
The project team has installed 31 level 2 EVSEs and 5 level 3 EVSEs for use by both fleet and personally-owned vehicles at the Los Angeles Air Force Base. The project expanded on a previously developed open-source software solution for accurately monitoring and calculating electricity costs for each personally-owned electric vehicle charging session and will implement a plan for participation in the day-ahead demand response program to include electric vehicles, specifically personally-owned electric vehicles. Base staff will also be surveyed to study workplace charging price sensitivity and determine current and future base EV charging needs. An initial version of this survey has been drafted and reviewed by the project team and the base and is prepared to be administered.
The Issue
Shifting plug-in electric vehicle (PEV) charging from overnight home charging to daytime workplace charging better aligns charging load with solar power generation. A major challenge military bases face in promoting employee PEV adoption through workplace charging is meeting government cost recovery requirements. Military bases have attempted to deploy commercial off-the-shelf products (hardware and software) to address charging at federal facilities, but demand is often not sufficient to support the ongoing cost of software, operations, and maintenance. Further, these products lack capabilities to locally curtail charging in response to demand and meet current security requirements.
Project Innovation
This project will develop a software solution to monitor the cost of electricity delivered to personally owned and fleet electric vehicles using shared chargers, ensure cost recovery requirements for military bases and other government workplaces are met, and meet government security requirements. Charging data will be collected to inform advancement of similar solutions for other military bases and government workplaces across California. Survey data will be collected to gauge workplace charging participation, charging preferences, and price sensitivity.
Project Goals
Project Benefits
Project activities resulting in benefits include (1) developing accounting and settlement methods to recover personally owned electric vehicle workplace charging costs at military bases and other government workplaces, (2) managing charging for chargers behind the same meter as buildings to maximize service to drivers and minimize additions to monthly peak demand charges, and (3) determining costs and benefits of combining charging stations with solar generation and/or battery energy storage. These costs and benefits will be simulated for sites and conditions beyond the Los Angeles Air Force Base.
Reliability
The managed charging system will be able to control charging of all personally owned and fleet workplace electric vehicles and ensure distribution system health is not compromised.
Economic Development
Personally owned electric vehicle drivers that utilize charging stations at military bases and other government workplaces will be appropriately compensated with the use of this project's developed software solution that meets government requirements.
Environmental Sustainability
Increasing utilization of workplace charging can help shift EV charging loads to daytime hours that align with renewable generation.
Key Project Members
Douglas Black
Christoph Gehbauer
Subrecipients
Kisensum
TechFlow, Inc.
Match Partners
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
