⚡ electrical engineering

Community-to-Vehicle: Integrating Electric Vehicles into Energy Communities -- A Swiss Case Study

This paper proposes and evaluates the "Community-to-Vehicle" (C2V) framework in Switzerland, demonstrating that integrating electric vehicle charging into local energy communities significantly improves renewable energy utilization, reduces charging costs for users, and generates additional revenue for the community.

Original authors: Na Li, Dong Li, Stavros Orfanoudakis, Özge Okur, N. K. Panda, Pedro P. Vergara, Binod Koirala

Published 2026-05-08

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CC BY 4.0

Original authors: Na Li, Dong Li, Stavros Orfanoudakis, Özge Okur, N. K. Panda, Pedro P. Vergara, Binod Koirala

Original paper licensed under CC BY 4.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). ✨ This is an AI-generated explanation of the paper below. It is not written or endorsed by the authors. For technical accuracy, refer to the original paper. Read full disclaimer

Imagine a neighborhood where everyone has a rooftop solar panel. On sunny days, these panels produce more electricity than the neighbors need. Usually, this extra "sun power" is sold back to the main power grid for a very low price, like selling a fresh apple for pennies.

At the same time, people in that same neighborhood are driving electric cars (EVs). When they need to charge, they go to public stations run by big companies and pay a high price, like buying a fancy apple at a supermarket.

The Problem: Two Separate Worlds
Right now, these two groups—the solar neighbors and the electric car drivers—live in the same physical neighborhood but operate in two completely separate financial worlds. The solar neighbors can't easily sell their extra sun power directly to the car drivers. The car drivers can't buy that cheap, local energy. It's like having a bakery next door that throws away its extra bread every day, while the people next door are paying full price for bread at a store down the street.

The Solution: "Community-to-Vehicle" (C2V)
This paper proposes a new way to connect these two worlds, called Community-to-Vehicle (C2V). Think of it as the neighborhood bakery deciding to open a special "neighborhood drive-thru" for electric cars.

Here is how the C2V system works, using simple analogies:

The Neighborhood Bakery (The Energy Community): The group of neighbors with solar panels forms a club. They have a rule: "First, we use our own power. If we have extra, we sell it to each other at a fair, low price."
The Drive-Thru (The Charging Station): The club builds a charging station right in the neighborhood.
The Priority Rule: When the sun is shining and the club has extra power, that power goes straight to the electric cars first, before it is sold to the big grid.
The Price Tag: The club charges the electric car drivers a price that is:
- Cheaper than the big commercial charging stations (so drivers save money).
- Higher than what the club gets from the big grid (so the club makes a profit).

What Happens When They Do This?

For the Solar Neighbors: Instead of selling their extra sun power for pennies to the grid, they sell it to the electric cars for a better price. It's like the bakery selling its extra bread to the neighbors for a fair price instead of throwing it away. Everyone in the solar club earns a little more money.
For the Electric Car Drivers: They get to charge their cars with local, clean energy for less than they would pay at a public station. It's like getting fresh, local bread at a discount.
For the Neighborhood: They capture value that was previously lost. The money saved by the drivers and the extra profit for the solar neighbors stays within the community.

The "Price Tag" Balance
The paper found that the key to making this work is setting the right price for the electric cars.

If the price is too low, the electric car drivers save a lot, but the neighborhood club doesn't make enough money to pay for the charging station.
If the price is too high, the club makes a lot of money, but the drivers don't save much.
The "sweet spot" allows the neighborhood to pay for the charging station in just a few years while still offering drivers a great deal.

Does It Break the Power Grid?
A common worry is: "If we charge all these cars, will we overload the neighborhood's connection to the main grid?"
The study looked at this and found that while the neighborhood might need to pull a little more power from the main grid when the sun isn't shining (to charge the cars), it doesn't cause a dangerous spike. It's a predictable, manageable change, like adding a few more appliances to a house circuit.

The Bottom Line
This paper shows that by simply changing the rules to let neighbors sell their extra solar power directly to local electric cars, everyone wins. The solar owners earn more, the drivers pay less, and the community keeps the money local. It doesn't require complex new technology or changing how the cars drive; it just requires a new agreement to let the neighborhood act as its own charging station.

Technical Summary: Community-to-Vehicle (C2V) Integration in Swiss Energy Communities

Problem Statement
The paper identifies a structural inefficiency arising from the institutional separation between local energy communities (LECs) and public electric vehicle (EV) charging infrastructure. While both entities often occupy the same physical distribution network area, they operate under distinct regulatory and economic frameworks. LECs manage collective self-consumption among members, exporting surplus photovoltaic (PV) generation to the grid at low feed-in tariffs. Conversely, public Charging Point Operators (CPOs) purchase electricity to sell to EV users at high commercial rates that include procurement, grid, and margin costs. This separation prevents the direct coordination of locally generated renewable energy with local EV demand, resulting in suboptimal PV utilization, high charging costs for users, and missed economic value for the community. Existing paradigms like Vehicle-to-Grid (V2G) or Vehicle-to-Building (V2B) do not address this specific institutional gap within existing settlement frameworks, as they either require complex market participation or are limited to single-entity beneficiaries.

Methodology
The authors propose a Community-to-Vehicle (C2V) framework, an institutional design mechanism that integrates EV charging directly into the LEC settlement structure. The study utilizes a quantitative simulation over a representative year based on the NEST research building in Dübendorf, Switzerland, which houses a mixed-use LEC (residential and office).

The methodology compares two scenarios:

S1 (Status Quo): Institutional separation where the LEC exports surplus PV at feed-in tariffs and EV users charge independently at commercial CPO rates.
S2 (C2V Coordination): The LEC installs charging infrastructure and acts as the Charging Point Operator. The framework employs a surplus-priority dispatch rule:
- Locally generated PV surplus (after member self-consumption and sharing) is directed to EV charging before being exported to the grid.
- Residual EV demand is met by purchasing grid electricity at retail rates.
- EV users pay a unified community charging price ( $\lambda_{EV}$ ), which is set below commercial CPO rates but above the community's grid purchase cost.

The study evaluates five metrics: local PV absorption ratio, grid interaction (peak import/export), annual EV charging cost savings, annual community infrastructure revenue, and incremental revenue for PV-owning households. Simulations sweep across three demand scenarios (Low, Medium, High) and a range of community charging prices (0.30–0.55 CHF/kWh).

Key Contributions

Institutional Design: The paper introduces the C2V framework, reframing the energy community as the charging infrastructure provider. This design allows for the internalization of value between PV surplus and EV demand without requiring bidirectional hardware (V2G) or physical vehicle transport (B2V2B).
Quantitative Assessment: The study provides a techno-economic comparison between institutional separation and C2V coordination, demonstrating that C2V can significantly improve local PV utilization and economic performance without altering existing household settlement rules.
Price Mechanism Analysis: The work explicitly analyzes how the community charging price ( $\lambda_{EV}$ ) functions as a redistribution lever, balancing infrastructure cost recovery against user savings.

Results

PV Utilization: The C2V framework significantly increases local PV absorption. In the "High" demand scenario, the local absorption ratio rises from 62% (status quo) to 89%, capturing 27% more of the generated PV that would otherwise be exported.
Household Benefits: PV-owning households experience revenue increases ranging from approximately 6% to 27% across scenarios. This gain is derived from selling surplus to EVs at the internal sharing price ( $\lambda_{loc}$ ) rather than the low feed-in tariff ( $\lambda_{sell}$ ). The gains are distributed pro-rata, ensuring fairness regardless of household PV capacity.
Economic Viability: The community infrastructure generates revenue through two streams: monetizing PV surplus and a margin on grid-sourced energy. At a moderate charging price of 0.40 CHF/kWh, the annual revenue is sufficient to recover the installation cost of two 11 kW chargers (approx. 6,000 CHF) within a few years, or within a single year under high-demand conditions.
User Savings: EV users achieve significant cost savings compared to commercial charging, with aggregate savings increasing as the community charging price decreases.
Grid Impact: The study notes that while C2V reduces peak export (by utilizing surplus for charging), it may increase peak import by up to 20 kW to meet residual EV demand. This increase is bounded by charger capacity and represents a predictable constraint rather than an uncontrolled operational risk.

Significance and Claims
The paper claims that C2V offers a practical and implementable pathway for integrating EV charging into local energy communities under existing regulatory frameworks, specifically citing the upcoming Swiss Local Electricity Community (LEC) framework effective in 2026.

The authors emphasize that C2V does not require complex operational changes or new hardware beyond standard charging points. Instead, its value lies in institutional coordination: by setting a single community charging price, operators can redistribute value between infrastructure recovery and user savings. The study concludes that C2V effectively bridges the gap between physical proximity and institutional boundaries, allowing communities to capture value that is technically achievable but currently lost due to regulatory separation. The authors position C2V as a low-barrier entry point for LEC operators to enhance local flexibility and value creation, distinct from more complex concepts like V2G or mobile energy transport.

Technical Summary: Community-to-Vehicle (C2V) Integration in Swiss Energy Communities

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