How might we reward electric vehicle charging when and where renewable energy is available?

Today, electric vehicle (EV) drivers lack incentives to charge their cars when renewable energy is available and the grid has capacity to transport it. Drivers are generally left in the dark about fluctuating power prices or grid capacity constraints, which results in missed opportunities. Instead, curtailment and costs of congestion management continue to rise.

To address this, we have partnered with key innovators across the energy and mobility value chain. Together, we are on a mission to pioneer market-driven and grid-friendly EV charging within just six months. By leveraging charging flexibility, we aim to decrease costs for drivers and the entire power system by capturing low wholesale prices, reducing redispatch and delaying grid expansion.

Our partners cover the entire value chain

What is the scope of our Co-Innovation Project?

Problem

Limited grid capacity

Today, flexibility of EV drivers is not leveraged to stabilize the increasing volatility or to accelerate the transition to a more decentral power system. Resulting grid congestion and the subsequent redispatch measures are causing an increasing financial burden for electricity consumers. At the same time, high power prices and low utilization are slowing down the adoption of electric vehicles.

Approach

Incentives for grid- and market-friendly charging

To leverage charging flexibility, we are working on creating incentives for drivers, aligning fluctuating power prices with load signals from transmission and distribution grids. These can be used by aggregators to optimize home charging or by EMSPs at public charing stations.

Potential

Benefits for drivers

Both active behavioral change at public charging stations and automatic optimization of charging sessions at home have huge potential to decrease charging cost, prevent grid congestion, and integrate renewables.

Grid capacity reaches its limit, becoming an increasing economic burden

Grid congestion can occur at both the transmission system operator (TSO) and distribution system operator (DSO) level. Currently, congestion is the product of the following factors:

Transmission capacity limitation: TSO capacity limitations hinder the efficient transport of green energy (e.g. from the north to industrial hubs in the south), causing curtailment of renewables and activation of coal or gas plants.
PV peaks: High synchronicity in solar generation, particularly during midday peaks, causes congestion at the DSO level.
Load-dependent congestion caused by e.g. simultaneous EV charging during early evening hours is rare but will exert more pressure in the future.

Grid congestion, and the resulting redispatch measures already impose a significant financial burden on all consumers. In 2023, redispatch costs amounted to €3.1 billion and transmission grid expansion costs are projected to reach €50 billion by 2030.

How to enable grid- and market-friendly charging?

Grid- and market- friendly charging behavior requires a predictive signal that unites

the current utilization of distribution and
transmission grid as well as
the dynamic whole sale price to minimize system and consumer cost.

We built one harmonized grid signal

How can we leverage driver flexibility?

Public charging - implicit flexibility

There are > 150.000 public charge points in Germany at which > 5 GW of power are consumed. Driver flexibility can be leveraged by rewarding drivers to voluntarily and actively change their charging behavior. E-Mobility service provider can offer a wide range of rewards.

Home charging - explicit flexibility

There are > 900.000 private wallboxes installed in Germany at which > 9GW of power are consumed. Driver flexibility can be leveraged without active behavioral change. Instead, aggregators can remotely optimize charging sessions without compromising mobility needs.

Today grid fees don't reward flexibility.

Nowadays, 30-60% of the electricity price (before taxes) stem from grid fees. The main factors that determine how high they end up being are:

the annual total consumption (in MWh)
the peak power demanded over a 15-minute time window (in kW)
the usage duration, aka utilization rate (in hours/year)

This leads to especially hefty grid fees for CPOs of DC charging infrastructure, as they have a significantly lower utilization rate (7% vs 20% for AC), with a significantly higher peak power demand.