Using electric vehicles to improve building energy sustainability

A (nearly) zero-energy building (ZEB) is a building that roughly consumes the same amount of energy on an annual basis that the amount of renewable energy created on site. This paper tries to investigate to which extent Plug-in Electric Vehicles (PEVs) that are able to deliver part of their battery capacity to the residential appliances can allow ZEBs to operate in a truly self-sustainable fashion, i.e., minimising the amount of energy exchanged with the outer grid. Special emphasis is given to study the effect of the limited PEV owners´ cooperation that is due to the need of guaranteeing a preset driving range, as well as the capability of fixed batteries to compensate for low PEV owners´ cooperation.