Electric Vehicle Charging Identification and Profiling Using Australian Residential Smart Meter Data

A significant transformation is expected in the electricity grid over the next decade, with the grid integration of a large number of electric vehicles (EVs). This will significantly affect electricity consumption and the maximum and minimum demand. This paper quantifies the increasing energy consumption due to the mass adoption of EVs in Victoria, Australia, from smart meter (or national meter identifier - NMI) data. A novel sliding-window-based EV charging identification method is developed and described to extract the EV charging event from the NMI data. The analysis reveals that EV charging activities could increase the average hourly energy consumption by up to double. The results showed that mostly the energy consumption caused by EV charging varies between 2.8 kWh to 4.3 kWh, and nearly 50% of total EV charging occurs during residential peak hours (15:00 h to 21:00 h). The EV charging durations vary between 2 to 6 hours, and slow chargers are used mainly by residential customers. No distinct EV charging pattern differences have been identified between weekdays and weekends.