Improved forecasting of the adoption of Distributed Energy Resources (DERs) by end-use consumers can help power system planners account for the impacts of DERs on the planned system resource mix. This Technical Brief summarizes research on current practices used to forecast Electric Vehicles (EV) and distributed Solar Photovoltaic (PV) adoption and a quantitative analysis of the impact of EV adoption on expected future capacity expansion. Survey results show EV and PV adoption forecasts often are treated as exogenous inputs or modifiers to the main load forecast in resource planning. Granular (hourly, locational) forecasts of the impacts of solar PV and EVs on system load mostly are used for long-term distribution planning purposes. Our quantitative analyses show that EV adoption can significantly impact system planning decisions within a typical planning time horizon, particularly additional renewable resource capacity. Modeling results are highly dependent on specific system conditions, particularly the generation mix, load shapes, and the use of managed charging.
Authors Naga Srujana Goteti and Adam Diamant