Mobile Storage for Demand Charge Reduction

Electric vehicles (EVs) are at the intersection of transportation systems and energy systems. The EV batteries, an increasingly prominent type of energy resource, are largely underutilized. We propose a new business model that monetizes underutilized EV batteries as mobile energy storage to significantly reduce the demand charge portion of many commercial and industrial users’ electricity bills. This business requires minimal hardware to enable discharging the batteries of electric vehicles and a sharing platform that matches EVs to commercial electricity users in real time. Using real meter data, we show that a large number of users can be served by a small number of EVs in the proposed business model. Cost-revenue analysis based on a real electric tariff suggests that the demand charge saving covers the capital costs of needed hardware and the compensation for EV drivers to provide the service.