Transforming Indonesian transit fleets from liabilities to assets via vehicle to grid integration

Abstract The transition to electric vehicles (EVs) presents complex operational challenges for power system planners in emerging archipelagic economies like Indonesia. Current literature often models high-volume EV penetration as an inflexible stressor to localized distribution networks, and prior feasibility studies indicate that commercial Vehicle-to-Grid (V2G) integration is financially unviable under static tariff structures. This Brief Report addresses this gap by investigating the feasibility of adopting commercial municipal bus fleets as decentralized Virtual Power Plants (VPPs). This study formulates an optimization framework constrained by transit readiness schedules and introduces a theoretical Dynamic Feed-In Tariff (D-FiT) to incentivize peak shaving. Through an illustrative techno-economic case study of a 100-bus TransJakarta depot utilizing 324 kWh batteries, the model demonstrates a peak-shaving capacity of 4.25 MWh over a two-hour window. Accounting for 85% round-trip efficiency, this generates positive net arbitrage revenue and avoids an estimated 2.89 metric tons of CO₂ daily while strictly satisfying 95% State of Charge (SoC) departure constraints. By leveraging AI-driven forecasting as an implementation strategy, this study provides a pathway to smooth grid load dynamics without compromising transit availability.