About the Project
Electric Vehicle Uptake Modelling (EV-Up) is one of our Network Innovation Allowance (NIA) projects with the aim to develop an evidence base for estimating the effects of electric vehicle uptake on the SP Energy Networks area in Scotland, England and Wales. This project will help to drive our Innovation Strategy ‘Smarter Flexible Network’ vision, enabling our customers to take advantage of new technologies and opportunities while paving the way for a low carbon economy.
The EV-Up model is based on key indicators such as the ability of each household to park off street, combined with demographic information such as age profile and economic activity. The same platform and a similar methodology has subsequently been utilised for our Heat-Up project, which has provided insight to our customers’ ability to transition to electrified heating.
EV-Up will analyse the peak electricity demand caused by electric vehicles in order to direct our network investment strategy. The modelling will be informed by published research and stakeholder engagement with vehicle manufactures. Combining the outputs from EV-Up and Heat-Up projects will allow us to determine peak household demand and convert this into diversity-adjusted demand at all voltage levels for the SP Energy Networks’ regions. This will provide the most granular view of the expected future network electricity demand, with the major Low Carbon Technologies (LCTs) incorporated, to date.
Benefits for customers & SP Energy Networks
EV-Up provides greatly enhanced visibility of Low Carbon Technologies (LCTs) uptake and allows SP Energy Networks to overlay this information on our electricity network. This will help to quantify the effects LCT uptake will have and where reinforcement solutions are required.
This improved understanding allows us to optimise resources and complete work in large strategic areas as opposed to sporadic individual properties, bringing cost and logistical benefits to both our customers and our business.
Overall, customer installations will be facilitated much more quickly as the required reinforcement has been completed proactively as opposed to after the customer needs it.
This project will also be of use to governments and local councils as the model will display the scale of the task and level of investment required to meet their targets. This will better aid them in ensuring the legislation in relation to electric transport is as appropriate and effective as possible.
Example Outputs
Below is an example output from the EV-Up model demonstrating where, in this particular simulation, additional electric vehicle demand is expected in future. The red regions indicate areas that are likely to need network reinforcement solutions to cope with the additional demand. Figures are for demonstration purposes only.
