A decentralized approach towards resolving transmission grid congestion in Germany using vehicle-to-grid technology

The increasing penetration of renewable generation in electricity markets as well as the rising number of electric vehicles pose new challenges for transmission grids. Additional demand and regionally clustered generation force system operators to consider costly expansion plans and employ expensive redispatch measures in the meantime. In this paper, we assess the ability of the expanded German transmission grid to cope with the additional demand of uncoordinated electric vehicle charging using a transportation problem formulation. We then propose local flexibility markets for electric vehicle owners to relieve the grid of congestion and to provide a heuristic that finds feasible solutions. We test our models on empirical data from the German electricity system of 2016. We find that the currently proposed expansion of the German electricity grid will not suffice to cope with increased electricity demand from uncoordinated electric vehicle charging. However, with coordination, electric vehicles can support transmission grid balancing and local flexibility markets can provide reasonable remuneration for electric vehicle owners.