The Impact of Electric Vehicle Adoption in North Carolina

The U.S total annual sales of Battery Electric Vehicles (EVs) and Plug-in EVs increased from 16 thousand in 2011 to 190 thousand in 2017; that is 12 times in size over 6 years (Fitzgerald). Consequently, the demand for electricity has increased rapidly, which creates new challenges and opportunities for the electricity generation system and the power grid. This project assesses the impacts of different scenarios of penetration of EVs in the Duke Energy Carolinas/Duke Energy Progress (DEC/DEP) region in 2030. Specifically, the project simulates the real-time EVs operation in 2030 and provides economic, environmental and social insights. First this project will characterize scenarios of EV penetration in the region that take EV growth and charging patterns into consideration. Then the additional demand caused by each scenario will be generated by a custom model built for this project. Lastly this project will utilize Aurora, an electric modeling, forecasting, and analysis tool, to simulate the impact of the additional demand on the DEC/DEP system in 2030. The results of this project underline the relationship between the economic and environmental impact of electric vehicles and the DEC/DEP fuel mix.