Trading Electricity in the Power Market by Aggregating Thousands of EVs... "Virtual Battery" Becomes Reality [Reading Science]

GIST Achieves Up to 14.9% Cost Reduction Through Cluster Control of 5,000 EVs
Anticipation Grows for Commercialization of V2G Technology

A domestic research team has implemented "virtual battery" technology that can aggregate thousands of electric vehicles (EVs) to operate as a single power plant for buying and selling electricity. This development is being hailed as a foundation for transitioning EVs from mere means of transportation to "distributed energy resources" capable of participating in the power market.

On March 24, Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology (GIST) announced that the research team led by Professor Kim Yunsu from the School of Electrical, Electronics, and Computer Engineering has developed a cluster control technology. This technology integrates multiple EVs into a single "virtual battery," enabling precise implementation from power market bidding to charging and discharging at the level of individual vehicles.

Integrated virtual battery framework for participation in the electricity market. The electric vehicle integrated management system exchanges information with charging stations and chargers in real time to determine the timing of power transactions. Provided by the research team

The core of this technology is that it enables power operation without collecting sensitive information such as each vehicle's battery status or capacity. Traditionally, power plans had to be developed based on data from individual vehicles, and errors could occur when applying these plans to actual vehicles.

Power Control Without Sensitive Data... Resolving "Plan-Execution Mismatch"

The research team proposed a mathematical model that aggregates multiple EVs into a "single battery" for calculation purposes. Instead of individually reflecting the complex state of each vehicle, the model treats the entire group as one large storage unit to calculate the range of possible power storage and supply.

With this approach, power operation became possible using only minimal information, such as target charge amount and charger connection time. The team mathematically proved that the overall power plan can be accurately realized through the actual charging and discharging of individual vehicles. This resolves what is known as the "disaggregation feasibility" problem.

Until now, it has been difficult to aggregate EVs as stable power resources, like solar panels or power plants, due to their mobility and the variability of their battery states. The burden of personal data collection has also been cited as a barrier to commercialization.

Research team photo. From the top left: Wanho Park, PhD student in Electrical, Electronics, and Computer Engineering; Yunsu Kim, Professor; Seonghyuk Ko, Junbyeok Hwang, and Jinsol Hwang, PhD students. Provided by GIST

Direct Participation in the Power Market... Up to 14.9% Cost Savings

With this technology, thousands of EVs can be grouped together to participate in both the day-ahead and real-time power markets. The strategy for supplying or storing electricity is automatically established in response to power demand and price.

For example, during peak demand periods, electricity stored in vehicle batteries can be sold, while during periods of low electricity prices, the vehicles can be recharged. This allows for more flexible management of power supply and demand.

Based on an eight-month power market simulation using data from thousands of EVs, the research team found that operating costs could be reduced by at least 8.8% and up to 14.9% compared to previous methods. They also confirmed that even with a scale of 5,000 vehicles, participation in the power market could be achieved at high computational speeds, demonstrating both large-scale scalability and practical applicability.

Professor Kim Yunsu commented, "We have established a foundation for utilizing large-scale EVs as a reliable power resource," and added, "This will accelerate the commercialization of vehicle-to-grid (V2G) technology and contribute to enhancing the flexibility and stability of the power grid."

This research was conducted with support from Hyundai Motor Group and was published online on March 9 in the international academic journal "eTransportation" (ranked No. 1 in the JCR for transportation journals).

GIST stated that this technology is expected to be utilized as a core technology connecting the power market and the EV industry, and plans to pursue technology transfer agreements.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.