Optimal Dispatch of Electrified Autonomous Mobility on Demand Vehicles during Power Outages

Abstract: The era of fully autonomous, electrified taxi fleets is rapidly approaching, and with it the opportunity to innovate myriad on-demand services that extend beyond the realm of human mobility. This project envisions a future where autonomous plug-in electric vehicle (PEV) fleets can be dispatched as both a taxi service and a source of on-demand power serving customers during power outages. We develop a PDE-based scheme to manage the optimal dispatch of an autonomous fleet to serve passengers and electric power demand during outages as an additional stream of revenue. We use real world power outage and taxi data from San Francisco for our case study, modeling the optimal dispatch of several fleet sizes over the course of one day; we examine both moderate and extreme outage scenarios. In the moderate scenario, the revenue earned serving power demand is negligible compared with revenue earned serving passenger trips. In the extreme scenario, supplying power accounts for between $1 and $2 million, amounting to between 32\% and 40\% more revenue than is earned serving mobility only, depending on fleet size. While the overall value of providing on-demand power depends on the frequency and severity of power outages, our results show that serving power demand during large-scale outages can provide a substantial value stream, comparable to the value to be earned providing grid services.