Electric Vehicles and the Energy Transition: Unintended Consequences of a Common Retail Rate Design

Megan R. Bailey, David Brown, Erica Myers, Blake C. Shaffer and Frank A. Wolak

No 32886, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: The growth of electric vehicles (EVs) raises new challenges for electricity systems. We implement a field experiment to assess the effect of time-of-use (TOU) pricing and managed charging on EV charging behavior. We find that while TOU pricing is effective at shifting EV charging into off-peak hours, it unintentionally induces new and larger “shadow peaks” of simultaneous charging. These shadow peaks lead to greater exceedance of local capacity constraints and advance the need for distribution network upgrades. In contrast, centrally managed charging solves the coordination problem, reducing transformer capacity requirements, and is well-tolerated by consumers in our setting.

JEL-codes: L94 Q41 R40 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024-08
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-des, nep-ene, nep-exp, nep-reg and nep-tre
Note: EEE IO
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Working Paper: Electric Vehicles and the Energy Transition: Unintended Consequences of a Common Retail Rate Design (2024)
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