Utilization of Battery Electric Buses for the Resiliency of Islanded Microgrids

Document Type

Journal Article

Publication Date

2023

Subject Area

mode - bus, infrastructure - vehicle, infrastructure - fleet management

Keywords

Microgrid, Resiliency, Battery electric bus, Self-healing system, Loss of load, Mobile energy resource, Vehicle-to-grid

Abstract

During a grid outage, microgrids can benefit from energy resources that enhance the reliability and resiliency of serving critical loads and overall protection. The present study develops a methodology to assess the efficacy of battery electric buses (BEBs) as a microgrid resiliency attribute during islanded operations, and applies the methodology to an existing 20 MW-class microgrid equipped with a fleet of 20 BEBs. Each BEB comprises 324 kWh of stored energy and can charge/discharge at 80 kW which translates to 1.6 MW and the potential of 6.48 MWh of stored power and energy respectively depending on the state-of-charge of each bus. For the application evaluated, the methodology reveals that a BEB fleet can serve as a viable resiliency and flexible energy resource for an islanded microgrid by enabling Mobility Services+, examples of which include (1) deployment to serve critical loads within the microgrid (e.g., an emergency control center, shelter, clinic), (2) deployment to serve critical loads outside the microgrid (e.g., a hospital, fire station, grocery store), and (3) service as a blackstart resource should the microgrid prime power generator trip. In the present case, the BEB fleet has the ability to support a microgrid emergency center for at least 16 h, and serve as a blackstart resource with a probability of 100% by a combination of parked BEBs and BEBs recalled from on route transit service.

Rights

Permission to publish the abstract has been given by Elsevier, copyright remains with them.

Comments

Applied Energy Home Page:

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/03062619

Link to Full Text

Share

COinS