Conference Agenda

This paper studies residential charging behavior of Electric Vehicles (EVs) and its potential implications for electricity distribution grids in Sweden. Using a unique data set of 4,944 households living in the municipality of Umeå, I apply fixed effects regression techniques to estimate how adoption of an EV affects a household's electricity consumption, and more specifically how the effect varies by type of EV (Battery Electric Vehicles (BEVs) and Plug-In Hybrid Vehicles(PHEVs)), and hour of the day. I find that adoption of a BEV or a PHEV increases an average household's hourly electricity consumption by 0.29 and 0.15 kWh per hour, respectively. This implies a 10-20\% increase in total residential electricity consumption. Estimates of EV charging vary significantly by hour of the day, and most charging takes place during evening hours, when grid load is typically high. This implies that residential charging of EVs will further add to peak demand if households are not provided incentives to reallocate charging to off-peak hours. However, an ancillary insight from the analysis reveals that the increase in the demand for electricity and the increased pressure on the grid could potentially be offset by solar electricity generation, provided that solar panels and energy storage can be combined at the household level. Thus, subsidizing solar panels and energy storage systems may be an effective strategy to address the growing demand for electricity and reduce grid congestion in the future.