Ancillary services and electric vehicles: An overview from charging clusters and chargers technology perspectives

The transformation towards a sustainable power system calls for new ways of operating the network. In that regard, electric vehicles (EVs) with their charging infrastructure qualify as a flexible resource. This paper interconnects ancillary services and EV flexibility to help system operators (SOs) and flexibility providers understand the role and localize EV-chargers in the power system.

First, the focus is on SOs. The manuscript reviews ancillary services based on power system operational challenges. The ancillary services are differentiated between 8 frequency and 32 flexibility services. These are then subdivided depending on the management control: the first group includes inertia, primary, and secondary/tertiary frequency control, while the second includes congestion management, voltage regulation, power quality, grid stability, and emission management.

Of all the different services, the ones that can be provided by EV-charger are highlighted and classified into 12 geo-electrical charging clusters. Second, the focus is moved to the flexibility providers. Independently from location, to provide ancillary services with EVs, multiple actors are recognized: the end-user, the charging site operator (CSO), the charging point operator (CPO), the aggregator, the energy community, the distribution system operator (DSO), and the transmission system operator (TSO).

The collaboration between the actors is today carried out by making alliances, to help exchange knowledge and gain confidence in ancillary services provision. In conclusion, the literature review presents the characteristics of 27 slow (up to 50 kW) smart chargers, the common flexibility features being scheduling (100%), modulation (89%), and phase switching (10%).