Green transportation is a key frontier topic in transport and urban–regional planning. As the Paris Agreement drives the global transition toward a low-carbon economy, the widespread adoption of electric vehicles (EVs) has become a crucial strategy for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. To alleviate users’ “range anxiety,” ultra-fast charging (UFCS) technology is being rapidly deployed—particularly in China—promising to cut charging times to just 5–10 minutes. This advancement is poised to reshape travel behavior, the spatial distribution of urban energy infrastructure, and urban form itself. However, the mass adoption of UFCS may trigger highly concentrated and disruptive charging peaks at moments of electricity price changes, posing serious challenges to grid stability.
A research team led by Professor Pengjun Zhao and Assistant Professor Haoran Zhang from Peking University developed a big-data-driven simulation framework that uses over 760,000 public charging records from Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou to quantitatively assess the dynamic impacts of large-scale UFCS deployment on urban power grids. The study not only pioneers a new research paradigm for green mobility by simulating grid load fluctuations under varying UFCS deployment scales, but also integrates energy storage systems (ESS) into different market regulation scenarios to explore optimal operational strategies. The findings provide fresh planning and management insights for implementing sustainable urban transportation and expand theoretical understanding of urban transitions under emerging energy systems.
Key Findings
Although time-of-use (TOU) electricity pricing successfully shifts most charging demand to nighttime, the introduction of ultra-fast chargers significantly amplifies load volatility. Because UFCS enables rapid energy replenishment, many users start charging simultaneously when electricity prices switch from high to low (around 10 or 11 p.m.), creating “secondary peaks” or even “midnight spikes.” Simulation results indicate that deploying 2,000 UFCS stations could increase the daily load variation by up to 31.61% compared to the baseline scenario (Figure 1). This concentrated demand surge undermines the purpose of TOU pricing and poses severe challenges to grid flexibility and adequacy.
Figure 1: Daily charging load curves before and after UFCS deployment in three cities under 2030, 2035, and 2050 scenarios.
The large-scale deployment of UFCS substantially increases operational risks for power grids, particularly in regulating reserve and capacity reserve requirements. The study shows that the steep charging load surges caused by UFCS—especially during TOU price switching periods—may exhaust regulating reserves and induce frequency or voltage instability. Moreover, as UFCS stations proliferate, the probability of total charging demand exceeding capacity reserves rises sharply. When 1,000 UFCS stations are installed, a 15% reserve margin becomes insufficient; at 2,000 stations, even a 25% margin is severely strained (Figure 2).
Figure 2: Grid stability risks induced by UFCS deployment.
The research further examines the role of energy storage systems (ESS) at UFCS stations. ESS can perform “energy arbitrage” by charging during off-peak hours and discharging during peaks, thereby flattening daily loads and improving economic returns. However, in unregulated markets, arbitrage-oriented ESS operations may introduce new risks. When prices drop, many ESS units charge simultaneously, creating new and even sharper load peaks. Simulations show that 1,000 ESS-integrated UFCS stations could raise peak load by 70–85% above the baseline, and by 2050, peak loads could reach 7.5 times the current level (Figure 3). In contrast, introducing capacity pricing or demand response mechanisms effectively stabilizes load fluctuations, demonstrating the potential of ESS to enhance grid stability. These findings suggest that without proper policy guidance and regulation, ESS could exacerbate—rather than mitigate—grid instability.
Figure 3: Impacts of ESS-integrated UFCS on charging loads under different regulatory scenarios.
Policy Implications
The study emphasizes that while UFCS is a catalyst for transport electrification, its interaction with existing electricity market mechanisms exposes critical structural vulnerabilities. To fully realize the environmental benefits of electric mobility, policymakers and grid operators must move beyond static TOU pricing toward dynamic and adaptive market frameworks. Simultaneously, comprehensive policies must be established to regulate ESS operations—treating them as grid assets rather than unrestrained market actors. Only through these forward-looking adjustments can cities ensure effective coordination among green transportation development, infrastructure management, and urban socioeconomic and spatial transformation, achieving integrated environmental, economic, and social sustainability goals.
This research provides a big-data-driven paradigm for urban and regional planning studies, offering new technological and policy insights for the promotion of electric vehicles, and advancing theoretical understanding of the coordination between green transportation and urban systems.
The study, titled “China’s urban EV ultra-fast charging distorts regulated price signals and elevates risk to grid stability,” was published online in Nature Communications on September 26, 2025.
Professor Pengjun Zhao and Assistant Professor Haoran Zhang are corresponding authors. Dr. Qing Yu, Professor Pengjun Zhao, and Jiaxing Li are co-first authors. The research was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 52472316).
Read the full article:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-025-63199-3
