Optimizing Electric Vehicle Charging: Managing User Behavior, Flexibility, Market Dynamics, and Costs

The increasing adoption of electric vehicles (EVs) presents both challenges and opportunities for the power system. While the simultaneous charging of multiple EVs can increase peak demand, controlled charging—i.e., smart charging—allows EVs to serve as flexible assets. By implementing smart charging strategies, system operators and utilities can leverage EV flexibility to adapt the charging behavior in response to power system signals while ensuring user requirements are met. This thesis takes the perspective of an energy supplier, using smart charging to reduce their portfolio costs. However, achieving this goal requires addressing challenges on both the user and market sides. User-related challenges include willingness to participate and diverse driving and charging habits, which introduce variability in EV flexibility available for energy suppliers. On the market side, this variability, coupled with fluctuating electricity prices, makes it difficult to assess and monetize EV flexibility in the markets.
To address these challenges, this thesis, comprising seven research papers, investigates user factors influencing EV flexibility and integrates them into smart charging algorithms to enhance energy suppliers’ trading strategies. Three papers focus on user behavior, analyzing factors that affect user participation in smart charging programs and the effectiveness of behavioral interventions in increasing flexibility provision. The remaining four papers quantify EV flexibility, assess its monetary value in wholesale electricity markets, and develop optimization models for energy procurement and imbalance management. By combining behavioral insights with optimization models and dynamic trading strategies, this thesis provides a comprehensive framework for energy suppliers to harness EV flexibility and reduce portfolio costs while maintaining user satisfaction.