Bidirectional battery electric vehicle fleets in commercial applications: Exploring synergies and substitutions with stationary battery storage

As the global energy landscape evolves toward greater sustainability, batteries are becoming an increasingly important component in the integration of volatile energy sources. Stationary battery storage solutions offer significant benefits in commercial and industrial settings, including peak load reduction, increased self-consumption and optimised procurement with respect to dynamic electricity tariffs. The same capabilities are attributed to bidirectional battery electric vehicles that can serve as mobile battery storage in the context of commerce and industry, also referred to as “Vehicle-to-Business”. However, a review of existing literature reveals a significant gap in research concerning the combination and interaction between bidirectional battery electric vehicle fleets and stationary battery storage in various economic sectors. To address this gap, a simulation environment is used to evaluate three different tertiary sector use cases: Manufacturing, Office, and Health and Social Services, taking into account economic and technical indicators. A variation of fleet size, stationary battery storage capacity and battery electric vehicle charging strategies shows that bidirectional fleets and stationary battery storage can lead to varying degrees of cost savings in different use cases. Further investigation into the amortisation time in different scenarios indicates that investment recommendations regarding bidirectional fleets and/or stationary battery storage are highly sensitive to factors such as use case, fleet size, stationary battery storage investment level and investment year, as well as starting conditions such as greenfield or brownfield scenarios. Our work provides new insights into long-term investment analysis and the relationship between bidirectional battery electric vehicle fleets and stationary battery storage for various economic sectors.