Observing the impact of renewable electricity on the emission factors of electric vehicles using electricity generation data

By analyzing the electricity generation data of Texas from 2007 to 2024, this study computes the average emission factors (AEF) of electric vehicles and observes how the AEF evolved with changes in grid mixes. The paper observes both temporal and the long-term trends within Texas AEF, and it was observed that the primary source of variation within the AEF comes from the time-varying supply of renewable energy. In addition to developing a tool to forecast the AEF, this study found that adopting solar and wind power generation simultaneously allowed the two energy sources to compensate for each other's diurnal and seasonal patterns, making EV charging sustainable across all times. A 3-D framework for peak identification of AEF considering both diurnal and seasonal variation was proposed, and it was observed that the peaks in AEF had shifted over the years and that the current governmental recommendation to charge during the evenings could potentially be modified to encourage charging across all times of the day save for very specific time intervals.