Profitability of Frequency Regulation by Electric Vehicles in Denmark and Japan Considering Battery Degradation Costs

This paper determines the profitability of the primary frequency regulation (FR) service considering the wear of the electric vehicle (EV) battery as a cost. To evaluate the profitability of the FR service, the cost of degradation from FR provision is separated from the degradation caused by driving usage.

During FR, the power response is proportional to the frequency deviation with full activation power of 9.2 kW, when deviations are larger than 100 mHz. The degradation due to FR is found to be an additional 1–2% to the 7–12% capacity reduction of a 40 kWh Lithium-ion NMC battery pack over 5 years. The overall economic framework is applied in Denmark, both DK1 and DK2, and Japan, by considering historical frequencies.

The DK2 FR market framework is taken as reference also for the Japanese and the DK1 cases. Electricity prices and charger efficiency are the two main parameters that affect the profitability of the service. Indeed, with domestic prices there is no profitability, whereas with industrial prices, despite differences between the frequencies, the service is similarly profitable with approx. 3500€ for a five-year period.