Modeling of photovoltaic power generation and electric vehicles charging on city-scale: A review

Photovoltaics (PV) and electric vehicles (EVs) are promising technologies for increasing energy efficiency and the share of renewable energy sources in power and transport systems. As regards the deployment, use and system integration of these technologies, spatio-temporal modeling of PV power production and EV charging is of importance for several purposes such as urban planning and power grid design and operation. There is an abundance of studies and reviews on modeling of PV power production and EV charging available in the literature. However, there is a lack of studies that review the opportunities for combined modeling of the power consumption and production associated with these technologies. This paper aims to fill this research gap by presenting a review of previous research regarding modeling of spatio-temporal PV power production and charging load of EVs. The paper provides a summary of previous work in both fields and the combination of the fields. Finally, research gaps that need to be further explored are identified. This survey revealed some research gaps that need to be further addressed. Improving the accuracy of PV power production ramp-rate modeling in addition to quantifying the aggregate clear-sky index on city-scale are two priorities for the PV potential studies. For the EV charging load models, differences in model assumptions, such as charging locations, charging powers and charging profiles, need to be studied more extensively. Moreover, there is an imminent need for metering the load of charging stations. This is essential in developing accurate models and time series forecasting techniques. For studies exploring both the PV and EV impacts, local weak points in a spatial network need to be discovered, especially for the city-scale studies. Cooperation between eminent researchers in the PV and EV fields might propagate state-of-the-art models from the separate fields to the combined studies.