REDWOOD SHORES, Calif., May 29,
2019 /PRNewswire/ -- The use of electric vehicles (EVs) is
growing at a record rate, with the International Energy Agency
(IEA) predicting that the number of electric cars on the road will
rise from 3.1 million in 2017 to 125 million in 2030. Enabling
utilities to intelligently manage this new energy demand on the
power grid, Oracle Utilities has unveiled a breakthrough in EV
detection.
Tapping deep machine learning, Oracle Utilities Analytics
Insights is able to identify the presence of an EV, show the time
and frequency of charging and disaggregate the energy being
consumed by the vehicle with advanced metering infrastructure (AMI)
data. With this intelligence, utilities can reliably plan for the
energy infusion needed to power EVs at scale and engage customers
to charge at the times that are the least expensive for them and
best for the health of the energy grid. The new EV detection
capabilities from Oracle Utilities Analytics Insights are currently
being piloted by a number of utilities.
"With solar, wind and storage technologies now constituting 90
percent of investment interest, the road is paved for deeper
decarbonization of the electricity sector," said Ben Kellison, director grid research, Wood
Mackenzie Power & Renewables. "The case for transport
electrification has never been stronger and the rapid growth in
investment interest from car manufacturers is a confirmation of the
future consumer demand for EVs. Utilities are now faced with an
increasingly clean and decentralized system and they need new data
and analytic packages to support a new planning
paradigm."
Impact of the EV Explosion on the Energy Grid
The
influx of EVs could represent an average additional growth of 1-4
percent in peak load on the grid over the next few decades,
according to a report by McKinsey. While this may seem modest, the
impact will be highly volatile and cause unpredictable spikes at
the local sub-station and feeder levels in residential areas. This
load is projected to reach as high as 30 percent peak growth in
certain urban areas that are hotspots for EV adoption.
While this transportation development represents an important
step forward in reducing carbon emissions, most electricity grids
were created long before EVs were a commercially viable consumer
product. As transportation continues to evolve from gas to the
grid, utilities must plan for an uptick in energy demand that will
vary dramatically by area.
"With almost every major auto manufacturer releasing new EV
models in the coming years, the window of time for utilities to act
is closing," said Dan Byrnes, SVP of
product development, Oracle Utilities. "The intelligence our
analytics provide is essential for utilities to make needed
assessments on grid investments and in tandem, work as trusted
advisors to customers who may be in the dark as to how owning an EV
is impacting their energy footprint and bill. From utility
optimization to proven customer engagement, only Oracle offers a
complete package to manage the explosion of EVs."
Powering Better EV Planning and Engagement
The Oracle
EV detection capabilities are powered by more than a decade of
research and experience disaggregating household energy data from
billions of data points collected from 60 million households across
100 utilities. Oracle's trained data models can be deployed for
each specific household's usage to understand whether a customer
has an EV, how they interact with their EV chargers, and where EVs
are clustering on the distribution grid. As such, utilities will be
able to better plan for and manage the operational impact of EVs as
a new distributed energy resource (DER) on the grid.
From a customer perspective, charging an EV can increase a
typical household's energy usage by 15 percent or more and
potentially double usage during peak demand times. With the
offering, utilities will have the tools to roll-out intuitive,
user-friendly EV adoption customer journeys and time-of-use (TOU)
plans to engage, educate and reward owners for charging during
non-peak times. In the future, these same kinds of engagement
programs can also be used for utilities to buy-back unused energy
from their customers' EV batteries to help balance energy supply
and demand in times of need.
"EVs will have an impact on every part of a utility's operations
– from grid stability and regulatory affairs to customer billing
and engagement," added Byrnes. "With Oracle, our customers have the
tools and intelligence they need to make better decisions, maximize
outcomes, and increase customer satisfaction every step of the
journey."
More Information
- Oracle Utilities
- Oracle DataRaker
- Oracle Opower
- Follow us on Twitter and the Oracle Utilities blog
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