Communications Reliability for Vehicle Grid Integration

Electric Vehicles (EVs) adoption rate has been steadily increasing in the US leading to a growing number of charging stations including faster DC (Direct Current) chargers and slower Level 1 and Level 2 AC (Alternating Current) chargers. This increase in demand for electricity is further exacerbated by recent developments in Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology, advanced manufacturing, and digitization. These factors will require electric utilities to upgrade their infrastructure to keep up with the increasing electrical demand (especially during peak hours). An easy way to counteract the need for these upgrades is to shift a major chunk of active charge sessions (durations where there is energy transfer from charger to EV's propulsion battery) to off-peak hours thereby flattening the load curve and making the infrastructure more resilient. This concept is known as Smart Charge Management (SCM). EV owners also benefit from SCM since it lowers their charging costs and consequently their transportation costs by prioritizing charging during off-peak hours. SCM takes advantage of EV's capability to act as a controllable load or DER (Distributed Energy Resource). This report summarizes the reliability analysis performed on the communication required for two of these SCM use-cases. This analysis only focuses on SCM strategies for unidirectional charging (energy transfer from EVSE to EV or V1G) and not bidirectional charging.