More than price: Assessing the system-wide impacts of renewable energy information on EV charging behavior

Electric vehicles (EV) are pivotal to the low-carbon energy transition; however, charging patterns concentrated during evening hours constrain renewable energy (RE) utilization and increase reliance on fossil-fuel-based generation. While previous research has primarily focused on financial incentives, the effectiveness of non-monetary, informational interventions remains understudied. This study quantifies the system-wide impacts of providing RE availability information as a behavioral instrument to shift EV charging demand. First, we employed a within-subject discrete choice experiment (DCE) in South Korea to examine changes in charging preferences when RE information is introduced as a decision-relevant attribute. Second, these behaviorally derived parameters were integrated into a 2036 power system simulation to quantify the technical and economic outcomes of information scenarios. The DCE analysis suggests that RE information can guide charging preferences toward daytime periods with higher renewable availability. Drivers exhibited a marginal willingness to pay of 3.38 KRW/kWh (0.24 US cents/kWh) per one-percentage-point increase in the RE share. The system simulation indicates that these behavioral shifts yield measurable system-level benefits: the dynamic information scenario reduces RE curtailment by 49% and system fuel costs by 4.6% (approximately USD 176 million during spring), while also lowering carbon emissions and net-load variability. These findings suggest that non-monetary information nudges can provide meaningful demand-side flexibility without direct financial subsidies and can complement existing time-of-use tariffs for enhancing RE integration.