Grid-related control measures for electric vehicle charging stations and heat pumps: implementation and impact analysis

The current objectives for the energy transition in Germany strive for a substantial growth in decentralized generation based on renewable energies, alongside the decarbonization of the transportation and heating sectors. The rapidly increasing number of charging stations and heat pumps results in a high need for time-consuming grid reinforcement and extension measures. To enable the grid integration of new consumers and thus increase the capacity of the grid for them, new regulations based on § 14a of the German Energy Industry Act aim at providing a legal basis for grid operators to dim loads during periods of possible system overloads to avoid or mitigate grid congestion. The works at hand aim at developing and analyzing implementations of transitional measures (preventive control) as well as measures taking the assessed grid situation into account (grid-oriented control). Based on these, a derivation of schemes for the design of incentivized load adaption is proposed. The simulation results contribute to the understanding of the newly regulated grid-oriented and preventive control measures in distribution systems, while also providing insights into the derivation and possible design of market models for incentivized load reduction. The results show how the control measures contribute to reducing grid congestions with the grid-oriented control being the more effective approach within this study. Moreover, the case study also highlights that such control measures might not be sufficient in highly loaded grids and grid reinforcement and grid extension measures may need to be considered along with such measures.