Valuing the household power outage self-sustainment capabilities of bidirectional electric vehicle charging

In an increasingly digitalized and electrified world, our dependence on reliable electricity has become more critical than ever. This reliance means that even brief power outages can cause significant discomfort, highlighting a major weakness in our interconnected lives. Bidirectional electric vehicle (EV) charging provides a possible solution for self-sustainment during power outages. In this study, we present the first available assessment of the value of power outage self-sustainment with bidirectional electric vehicle charging for household consumers. The study builds on an LP model used to optimize system electricity costs, on a deterministic power outage response model, and on real data of household electricity use and electric vehicle charging behavior. Further, we utilize k-means clustering to group households into different primary heating types based on system operator load curves. Two of the most popular valuation metrics, value of lost load (VOLL) and willingness to pay (WTP) are used to assess the value of annual outage self-sustainment with bidirectional EV charging. Based on our results, up to 99.7% of outages occurring during EV plug-in can be fully self-sustained. However, the average total annual value of self-sustained outages is relatively low (<24€) regardless of the valuation metric, with VOLL giving considerably higher values, reaching up to 330€ in maximum cases. Overall, the highest average total yearly benefits from bidirectional charging are gained by electric-heated households.