Electrification Technology Integration

This research area focuses on the integration of electrification technologies (EVs, heat pumps, etc.) onto the electrical grid, advancing the tools, methods, and practices necessary for a modern, resilient, and sustainable grid. Because many of these technologies are early in their deployment process, it is not clear how they will impact the electrical grid making it challenging to plan and operate the system. Our work encompasses understanding the new load introduced by electrification technologies, assessing their impacts on the grid, and planning and operating the grid to accommodate these changes. By addressing both current challenges and future needs, this research aims to facilitate the seamless incorporation of electrification technologies, ensuring a robust and adaptable grid infrastructure.

Other programs we are involved with: Electric Transportation (P18), Distributed Energy Resource Integration (P174), Electrification (P199), Advanced Buildings and Communities (P204), etc.

For more information, contact Jeremiah Deboever

Objective

From electric vehicles to electric water heater, the electrical grid is experiencing a rapid change in demand not only in the quantity of demand but also in how that demand behaves. Planning, operating, and protecting the grid will and already has been evolving over the past few years challenging the status quo. Understanding and characterizing these new loads is critical for enabling a smooth and effective transition.

To address this challenge, EPRI has been working to better understand and model these new loads and to develop new analytics and simulation capabilities. This is to ultimately equip distribution engineers / professionals with the knowledge and the experience with electrification technologies.

The purpose of this area of work is to summarize and aggregate knowledge across various groups and project sets to provide insights to the broader industry. This includes advancing fundamental / core research as well as case studies across the industry. Additionally, this also covers how to leverage tools and capabilities.

Different electrification technologies:

Transportation Residential Buildings Commercial Applications Agriculture
  • Passenger electric vehicles,
  • Commercial electric fleets,
  • Electric Buses (transit, school, etc.),
  • Freight Vehicles,
  • Rail Systems and other public transportation vehicles,
  • Off-road vehicles,
  • Etc.
  • Heat Pumps,
  • Electric water heaters,
  • Induction Cooktops,
  • Electric clothes driers,
  • Etc.
  • Heat pumps,
  • Boilers,
  • Manufacturing equipment,
  • Hydrogen Production,
  • Etc.
  • Electric tractors,
  • Electric pumps,
  • Radiant heats,
  • Etc.

Key Research Areas

  1. Forecasting: when, where and how much new demand will show up? Providing guidance and tools to assess the timeline, scale, and location of electrification technology adoption.
  2. Load Modeling: How should electrification technologies be modeled? Electrification technologies, whether they are EV chargers or heat pumps, will behave differently compared to conventional loads. This research area provides guidance on various considerations when considering electrification technologies.
  3. Grid Assessments: How do you assess grid impacts and plan the system for it? Providing guidance on what to consider for service requests where these technologies are being adopted as well as providing guidance on how to plan long-term for it.
  4. Load management: can you manage these new loads to reduce their impacts? Some of these electrification technologies could have inherent flexibility (e.g. overnight charging of passenger vehicles). This area provides guidance to distribution engineers on how to consider the capability, opportunity, and value of load side management (i.e. incentive-based, active management, demand response, V1G, etc.)
  5. Resiliency/Reliability/Equity: Do these new loads have different resiliency / reliability / equity requirement? This area provides guidance on how to consider these new loads in reliability / resiliency / equity assessments.

Research Value

This research area does not only cover all projects sets in P200 (planning, operation, protection, advanced analytics), it also leverage subject matter expertise from other programs at EPRI (Electric Transportation (P18), Distributed Energy Resource Integration (P174), Electrification (P199), Advanced Buildings and Communities (P204), etc.) to provide guidance to the broader industry. This cross-functional and cross-expertise collaboration provides valuable knowledge, case studies, and tools to distribution engineers to provide a smooth, effective, and efficient electrification transition.

  1. Future-proofing the grid to reduce multiple infrastructure investments
  2. Identifying least regret investments to account for uncertainty
  3. Infrastructure investments to meet state and federal decarbonization goals
  4. Fostering industry-wide collaborations to facilitate mutual learning

Supplemental Projects:

EVs2Scale2030

EVs2Scale2030 is a three-year collaboration that seeks to:
  • Enable the utility industry and its regulators to be in lockstep with vehicle manufacturers, fleet operators, and consumers to build confidence in achieving the 2030 goals
  • Enact systems and processes that support the pace of activity and investment required
  • Develop and optimize the tools and technologies required to enable EVs at scale and capture the grid benefits of this large and flexible load
Contact: Britta Gross 30020256622
Residential Secondary Design for Electrification

Develop guidance on how to account for electrification loads in residential service design

Contact: Jouni Peppanen 3002028367

Application Opportunities

  • Residential EV hosting capacity analysis
  • Electrification Grid Readiness Assessment (territory-wide)

Research Updates

On-going work

  • Service Transformer Sizing for Electrification: Current Practices and Electrification Impacts on Load Characteristics (3002027049)
  • Substation and Voltage Class Upgrades for High Penetration of DER and Electrification: Techno-economic Evaluation Methods and Considerations (3002027074)
  • Distribution Planning for Transportation Electrification: Leveraging Data and Models to Represent EV Charging Loads in Planning Studies (3002030887)
  • Holistic Integration of Distributed Energy Resources Including Electric Vehicles and End-Use Technologies (3002016092)
  • Wide-Area Distribution Assessment: 2022 Fleet Electric Vehicle Module (3002024680)
  • Electric Vehicle (EV) Fleet Charging Management and Assessing Distribution Impacts (3002023696)

White Papers / Public Resources

  • Electric Vehicle Fleets – The Distribution Planning Process (3002023019)
  • The Value of Grid Capacity Maps (3002030458)
  • EPRI’s EVs2Scale initiative (2 pager overview)
  • EVs2Scale2030 Grid Primer: An initial Look at the Impacts of Electric Vehicle Deployment on the Nation’s Grid (3002028010)

Case Studies

  • SCL’s Electrification Assessment (link)
  • Zero-Emission Planning and Grid Assessment for the Port of Los Angeles (3002025783)

Tools

  • DRIVE – EV module (P200E)
  • Hotspotter (3002023330)
  • eRoadMAPTM (eroadmap.epri.com)
  • GridFast (3002026782)