An integrated approach to planning charging infrastructure for battery electric vehicles

Abstract

Battery electric vehicles (BEVs) could break our dependence on fossil fuels by facilitating the transition to low carbon and efficient transport and power systems. Yet, BEV market share is under 1% and there are several barriers to adoption including the lack of charging infrastructure. This work revealed insights that could inform planning an appropriate charging infrastructure to support the transition towards BEVs. The insights were based on analysis of a comprehensive dataset collected from three early, real world demonstrators in the UK on BEVs and smart grids. The BEV participants had access and used home, work and public charging infrastructure including fast chargers (50 kW). Probabilistic methods were used to combine and analyse the datasets to ensure robustness of findings. The findings confirm that it is essential to consider a new refuelling paradigm for BEV charging infrastructure and not replicate the liquid-fuel infrastructure where all demand is met at public fuelling stations in a very short period of time. BEVs could be charged where they are routinely parked for long periods of time (i.e. home, work) and meet most of the charging needs of drivers. Installing slow charging infrastructure at home and work would be less expensive and less complicated than rolling-out a ubiquitous fast charging infrastructure to meet all charging needs. In addition, ensuring that cars are connected most of the time to the electricity network allows proper management of BEV charging demand. This could support reliable and efficient operation of the power system to minimise network upgrade costs. Finally, when slow charging infrastructure is neither available nor practical to meet charging needs, fast chargers can be used to fill in this gap. Analysing data of BEV drivers with access to private charging locations, the findings show that fast chargers become more important than slow chargers for daily journeys above 240km and could help overcome perceived and actual range barriers. An appropriate infrastructure takes an integrated approach encompassing BEV drivers’ requirements and the characteristics of the distribution networks where BEV charging infrastructure is connected. A non-integrated approach to delivering a charging infrastructure could impede the transition towards BEVs. The findings of this work could support on-going policy development in the UK and are crucial to planning national charging infrastructure to support the adoption of BEVs in a cost-optimal manner.