Distribution System Services Provided by Electric Vehicles: Recent Status, Challenges, and Future Prospects

Trend-setting countries have promoted or even employed an increased number of electric vehicles (EVs) and other distributed energy resources (DERs) in their power systems. This development has triggered new and increasing challenges in the distribution system planning and operation, whereby the distribution systems must adapt to the increased share of DERs.

However, EVs may also offer new opportunities and can be used to support the grid by providing several local and global power- and energy-based services. This paper presents a review and classification of the services potentially available from EVs for distribution systems, referred to as EV distribution system services (EV-DSS).

A detailed description of recent services and approaches is given, and an assessment of the maturity of EV-DSS is provided. Moreover, challenges and prospects for future research are identified, considering key topics, such as the design of the market framework, economic assessment, battery degradation, and the impacts of the transmission system operator service provision by EVs on distribution networks.

Thus, this paper offers a tool for stakeholders concerning services available from EVs and provides a broad literature framework that can be used as a base for further investigations. It is aligned with the current requirements to move toward the realistic implementations of EV-DSS.