The Parker Project: Cross-Brand Service Testing Using V2G
, Seyedmostafa Hashemi 1, Tiago Sousa 1, Thomas Meier Soerensen 1, Lance Noel 2 and Bjoern Christensen 3Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The paper discusses the Parker project. The project is presented in a proper manner. However, some points must be addressed.
-The most important concern is that the paper is too short for a journal. It seems more a conference version.
-The litterature review is very short. Some projects are discussed, but it seems tha authors wrote it like a technical report instead of an acedemic journal. Important academic works must be cited and discussed. I suggest to include V2G strategies, EV aggregators, smart charging techniques.
-The term VGI is not clear.
-Quality of figures must be improved.
-The results must be better explained, indicating in detail the main novelties and findings.
Author Response
The paper discusses the Parker project. The project is presented in a proper manner. However, some points must be addressed.
The most important concern is that the paper is too short for a journal. It seems more a conference version.
The authors thank the reviewer for the comment,
Indeed the paper is based on a conference paper which has been recommend for publication in WEVJ. As the paper is meant as to shed light on one specific aspect of the project (approach to VGI research and cross-brand testing) it is limited how much it can be extended without overlapping with other publications made by the project. We hope there is value in providing such an overview although the paper is shorter in nature than a more technical publications.
It should however be mentioned that the paper, implementing comments from reviewers, has now been extended to 11 pages (including references, excluding the appendix).
The litterature review is very short. Some projects are discussed, but it seems tha authors wrote it like a technical report instead of an acedemic journal. Important academic works must be cited and discussed. I suggest to include V2G strategies, EV aggregators, smart charging techniques.
The authors thank the reviewer for the comment,
As indicated by the reviewer the “State of the art” is mainly aimed at describing some of the research projects relevant to V2G projects – rather than the individual studies conducted within them.
However, as suggested the papers “State of the art” section has been extended with references to specific studies investigating the potential and mechanisms of V2G services.
The term VGI is not clear.
The authors thank the reviewer for the comment,
The term VGI was first used in California – The California Public Utilities commission provides the following definition: “Vehicle-Grid Integration (VGI) can harness the usage characteristics of and technologies within the PEVs to allow them to serve as a grid asset, reducing operating costs for facility and vehicle owners, the utilities’ distribution maintenance requirements, and energy prices in the wholesale market”
This definition as been added to the paper in the introduction section.
Quality of figures must be improved.
The authors thank the reviewer for the comment,
The authors have inspected the figures to ensure that the graphics are as clear as possible – the figures showing the experimental results in section 4 have been increased in size to allow for better readability.
The results must be better explained, indicating in detail the main novelties and findings.
The authors thank the reviewer for the comment,
The paper now elaborates more on the novelty and findings in the introduction and in the conclusion sections.
Reviewer 2 Report
Dear Authors,
This is interesting work in the context of smart grid and electric vehicle grid integration. Following are my queries
What is vehicle-to-tool ? You might want to replace it with a better name.
Please elaborate on how smart charging would reduce CO2 production.
Explanation of Fig. 4(top) is not clear. Hours mentioned in the description do not match with the figure.
Adding pictures from the actual experimental setup would add value to the paper.
Author Response
This is interesting work in the context of smart grid and electric vehicle grid integration. Following are my queries
What is vehicle-to-tool ? You might want to replace it with a better name.
The authors thank the reviewer for the comment,
Vehicle-to-tool means using the vehicle as a mobile power source where loads (anything we can imagine; power tools, electric barbecues etc) draw power directly from the battery. In Denmark an example is a company that use EV batteries for low-pressure hoses which are used to clean bus sheds. While we unfortunately cannot change the name as it has been decided by the project – certainly other names such as vehicle-to-equipment or Battery-to-load could be considered for future versions of the service catalog.
Please elaborate on how smart charging would reduce CO2 production.
The authors thank the reviewer for the comment,
The marginal emission factor signal should ensure that the energy demand from EV charging is placed in hours where there is a high likelihood that the additional demand will be covered by renewable energy. The company Tomorrow have found a way, using a large number of parameters to understand the historic relationship between steps in demand and CO2 emission.
the description of the MEF test has been slightly extended and sharpened in the section “Service - Marginal Emission Factor” as follows:
“.. this service seeks to reduce the CO2 production caused by charging. With sufficient energy data and forecasts it is possible to identify the hours of the day where the added load of EVs is likely to cause the least additional CO2 emission considering the marginal production. A marginal emission factor (MEF) has been developed in the Parker project in collaboration with the company Tomorrow, which captures the additional CO2 emissions of each additional unit of electricity consumed.
The MEF is made available through a signal which has been used for the test.”
The authors are in the process of writing a paper describing the MEF in detail which we hope will be published next year.
Explanation of Fig. 4(top) is not clear. Hours mentioned in the description do not match with the figure.
The authors thank the reviewer for the comment,
The authors agree that the description may not be sufficiently clear. A new description has been added:
“Requested power is used to let the EVs charge in hours with the lowest MEF signal value. The majority of energy needed is charged using the 1st hour of the test - while the remainder is charged during the 4th hour. This is a result of the 1st and 4th hours having the lowest MEF value and thus offering the least CO2 intensive energy. All cars can be seen to follow the requested power rather accurately - The vehicles with smaller batteries (Outlander and iOn) can be seen to reduce the charging power as the batteries are approaching full capacity.”
Adding pictures from the actual experimental setup would add value to the paper.
The authors thank the reviewer for the suggestion,
The authors have now added a picture from the physical setup to the paper in “4. Experimental validation”
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
It could be accepted
Reviewer 2 Report
Dear Authors,
Thanks for answering all my queries. Review the paper thoroughly before submitting the final version.
