Investigating Vehicle-to-grid from a User-centric Perspective
Typ
Examensarbete för masterexamen
Master's Thesis
Master's Thesis
Program
Industrial design engineering (MPDES), MSc
Publicerad
2024
Författare
Evertsson, Alice
Nylander, Alexandra
Modellbyggare
Tidskriftstitel
ISSN
Volymtitel
Utgivare
Sammanfattning
The rising energy demand from an increasingly electrified society reliant on renewable energy sources poses a significant challenge to the electricity grid, causing imbalances and peak demands. A supplement to grid expansion is the use of energy storage technologies such as batteries to stabilise the grid. Today, passenger vehicles are parked 96 percent of the time, and with the growing number of electric vehicles and the trend towards larger batteries, they present an excellent opportunity for energy storage. These potential forms the core of vehicle-to-grid. Previous research focuses on technical aspects and stakeholder collaboration but lacks the perspective of electric vehicle users. Hence, this thesis aims to explore electric vehicle users’ willingness to adopt bidirectional charging as a mean to redistribute energy consumption and avoid peaks in energy demand. The project entailed four distinct phases: initial research, user research, design sprint 1 and design sprint 2, involving literature studies, user studies, concept development and concept evaluation. The project approach combined the divergent and convergent phases of the double diamond framework with a co-creation approach, involving a consistent user group throughout the entire project in order to provide deeper insights into the user perspective of vehicle-to-grid by allowing for the progressive development of ideas and feedback. The project yielded in three key results: an identification of five potential vehicle-to-grid user archetypes, four key design principles for user adoption of vehicle-to-grid, and a design proposal of a vehicle-to-grid solution fulfilling the needs and requirements of the identified user archetypes. It could be seen that the intrinsic motivation of the user archetypes towards V2G differed based on their drivers and blockers, affecting how they perceived the use of a V2G solution. The four key design principles, simplicity, transparency, customisation, and system integration, was developed as a framework to enable the design of a V2G solution catering to all of the identified user archetypes. Furthermore, the thesis demonstrates the feasibility of designing a solution for diverse user groups, paving the way for widespread adoption of V2G technology. Additionally, understanding the user-centric perspective is crucial for future dissemination and adoption, an aspect this thesis contributes to significantly due to limited existing research in this area within the V2G domain.
Beskrivning
Ämne/nyckelord
vehicle-to-grid , bidirectional charging , vehicle-to-home , user adoption , user-centric product development , energy storage , future energy solution