Modeling the impact of electric vehicle adoption and charging strategies in ERCOT

Electric vehicle (EV) deployment provides an opportunity to reduce emissions in Texas, which has the greatest transportation emissions in the United States. This study aims to evaluate the impact of light-duty EV (LDEV) adoption through a capacity expansion model of the Texas power grid (Electric Reliability Council of Texas, ERCOT). Particularly, this work investigates how various LDEV adoption rates and charging strategies (i.e., managed and unmanaged) affect the electricity generation capacity mix, hourly dispatch, transmission capacity, carbon emissions, and costs in ERCOT. Our findings show that unmanaged charging strategies can lead to 30%–70% cumulative tailpipe CO2 emission reductions in the power and transportation sectors by 2050, depending on whether the LDEV adoption is 50% or 100%, respectively. These CO2 reductions are associated with 2.5%–6.7% increases in total power system costs compared to a scenario with no EV adoption. Furthermore, we find that managed charging can lead to 10% less transmission capacity compared to unmanaged charging in the complete LDV electrification scenarios. These results indicate that policies incentivizing EV adoption and managed charging strategies can facilitate sustainable decarbonization in the transportation sector while minimally increasing costs relative to a scenario without increased EV adoption.