What is it about?

We know that the environmental performance of electric cars depends on the share of low-carbon generators in the grid at the time they are charged.

Challenge

In this project, we will combine existing open data and models to help people better understand more precisely potential environmental and economic costs of specific electric cars combined with PV generation at their residence and their mobility patterns.

Specifically: Users will input typical driving distances, conditions (urban/rural), days of week, and driving times. Users will give their place of residence. The open source models https://www.renewables.ninja/ and https://carculator.psi.ch/ will be adapted to give hourly charging demand and PV potential over the year. These inputs will be combined with typical household demand profiles, and fed into a simple optimization routine (e.g. with or without a battery at home, delayed charging) to produce an estimate of the grid mix profile used to charge the car over the year, and hence its environmental impact.

Reach goals: Include economic costs as well, get environmental costs of charging at work