Modeling and Analyzing Electric Vehicle Charging

The combined battery capacity in electric vehicles (EVs) is considered an integral part of balancing a smart power grid in the future. In addition, EVs can reduce the usage of fossil fuels in the transport sector because EVs can be charged using electricity from renewable energy sources, such as wind turbines. To both enable a smart grid and the use of renewable energy, it is essential to know when and where an EV is plugged into the power grid and what battery capacity is available. In this paper, we present a generic spatio-temporal data-warehouse model for storing detailed information on all aspects of charging EVs, including integration with the electricity prices from a spot market. The proposed data warehouse is fully implemented and currently contains 2.5 years of charging data from 176 EVs. We describe the date warehouse model and the implementation including complex operations such as spatially identifying charging station usage patterns. Further, we give examples of novel analyses, e.g., how the free battery capacity
in the fleet of EVs changes over the day and how users can save money by charging the EVs when the electricity price is the lowest.