The Critical Role of Public Charging Infrastructure

Editors: Peter Fox-Penner, PhD, Z. Justin Ren, PhD, David O. JermainA decade after the launch of the contemporary global electric vehicle (EV) market, most cities face a major challenge preparing for rising EV demand. Some cities, and the leaders who shape them, are meeting and even leading demand for EV infrastructure. This book aggregates deep, groundbreaking research in the areas of urban EV deployment for city managers, private developers, urban planners, and utilities who want to understand and lead change

Towards electric bus system: planning, operating and evaluating

The green transformation of public transportation is an indispensable way to achieve carbon neutrality. Governments and authorities are vigorously implementing electric bus procurement and charging infrastructure deployment programs. At this primary but urgent stage, how to reasonably plan the procurement of electric buses, how to arrange the operation of the heterogeneous fleet, and how to locate and scale the infrastructure are urgent issues to be solved. For a smooth transition to full electrification, this thesis aims to propose systematic guidance for the fleet and charging facilities, to ensure life-cycle efficiency and energy conservation from the planning to the operational phase.One of the most important issues in the operational phase is the charge scheduling for electric buses, a new issue that is not present in the conventional transit system. How to take into account the charging location and time duration in bus scheduling and not cause additional load peaks to the grid is the first issue being addressed. A charging schedule optimization model is constructed for opportunity charging with battery wear and charging costs as optimization objectives. Besides, the uncertainty in energy consumption poses new challenges to daily operations. This thesis further specifies the daily charging schedules with the consideration of energy consumption uncertainty while safeguarding the punctuality of bus services.In the context of e-mobility systems, battery sizing, charging station deployment, and bus scheduling emerge as crucial factors. Traditionally these elements have been approached and organized separately with battery sizing and charging facility deployment termed planning phase problems and bus scheduling belonging to operational phase issues. However, the integrated optimization of the three problems has advantages in terms of life-cycle costs and emissions. Therefore, a consolidated optimization model is proposed to collaboratively optimize the three problems and a life-cycle costs analysis framework is developed to examine the performance of the system from both economic and environmental aspects. To improve the attractiveness and utilization of electric public transportation resources, two new solutions have been proposed in terms of charging strategy (vehicle-to-vehicle charging) and operational efficiency (mixed-flow transport). Vehicle-to-vehicle charging allows energy to be continuously transmitted along the road, reducing reliance on the accessibility and deployment of charging facilities. Mixed flow transport mode balances the directional travel demands and facilities the parcel delivery while ensuring the punctuality and safety of passenger transport

Benefits of Including Battery Electric Cars in Electric Road Systems: Battery and infrastructure savings

The newly emerged electric road system (ERS) technology, mainly considered to electrify long-haul trucks, has the advantage of charging passenger battery electric vehicles (BEVs). Using detailed GPS-logged movement patterns for 412 private conventional cars in Sweden, this study models the potential benefits for passenger BEVs using ERS. The study shows that ERS aiming to electrify long-haul trucks can cover most private vehicle trips with home-only stationary charging and small battery ranges (68-101 km), or alternatively eliminate all stationary charging needs for private vehicles with large battery ranges (136-606 km). The study points out that ERS utilization is independent of the total travel distances of car users and depends more on visited locations and residency. The economic benefits from reduced battery capacities with ERS can be large compared to the ERS infrastructure costs, even when BEVs constitute a relatively low share of the vehicle fleet. When planning ERS infrastructure for trucks and buses, the economic benefits from passenger BEVs can be large and therefore can also be considered

Challenges and Barriers of Wireless Charging Technologies for Electric Vehicles

Electric vehicles could be a significant aid in lowering greenhouse gas emissions. Even though extensive study has been done on the features and traits of electric vehicles and the nature of their charging infrastructure, network modeling for electric vehicle manufacturing has been limited and unchanging. The necessity of wireless electric vehicle charging, based on magnetic resonance coupling, drove the primary aims for this review work. Herein, we examined the basic theoretical framework for wireless power transmission systems for EV charging and performed a software-in-the-loop analysis, in addition to carrying out a performance analysis of an EV charging system based on magnetic resonance. This study also covered power pad designs and created workable remedies for the following issues: (i) how power pad positioning affected the function of wireless charging systems and (ii) how to develop strategies to keep power efficiency at its highest level. Moreover, safety features of wireless charging systems, owing to interruption from foreign objects and/or living objects, were analyzed, and solutions were proposed to ensure such systems would operate as safely and optimally as possible

Planning and operation objectives of public electric vehicle charging infrastructures: a review

Planning public electric vehicle (EV) charging infrastructure has gradually become a key factor in the electrification of mobility and decarbonization of the transport sector. In order to achieve a high level of electrification in mobility, in recent years, different studies have been presented, proposing novel practices and methodologies for the planning and operation of electric vehicles charging infrastructure. In this paper, the authors present an up-to-date analysis of the existing literature in this research field, organized by considering the perspectives and objectives of the principal actors/operators of the EV public charging infrastructure value chain. Among these actors, the electric vehicle, the charging operators and service providers, and the power system infrastructure (transmission and distribution system) are analyzed in depth. By classifying the reviewed literature based on this manifold viewpoints approach, this paper aims to facilitate researchers and technology developers in exploring the state-of-the-art methodologies for each actor’s perspective, and identify conflicting interests and synergies in charging infrastructure operation and planning.The authors would like to thank the Research Council of Norway and industry partners for the support in writing this paper under project 295133/E20FuChar—Grid and Charging Infrastructure of the Future https://prosjektbanken.forskningsradet.no/en/project/FORISS/295133?Kilde=F ORISS&distribution=Ar&chart=bar&calcType=funding&Sprak=no&sortBy=score&sortOrder=desc& resultCount=30&offset=0&Fritekst=fuchar&source=FORISS&projectId=295133 (accessed on 23 June 2023). The authors gratefully acknowledge Michele Garau, Bendik Nybakk Torsæter, and Daniel Mota from SINTEF Energy Research for their contribution to the conceptualization and review of the article. The work of Andreas Sumper was supported by the Catalan Institution for Research and Advanced Studies (ICREA) Academia Program.Postprint (published version

Power Beacon’s deployment optimization for wirelessly powering massive Internet of Things networks

Abstract. The fifth-generation (5G) and beyond wireless cellular networks promise the native support to, among other use cases, the so-called Internet of Things (IoT). Different from human-based cellular services, IoT networks implement a novel vision where ordinary machines possess the ability to autonomously sense, actuate, compute, and communicate throughout the Internet. However, as the number of connected devices grows larger, an urgent demand for energy-efficient communication technologies arises. A key challenge related to IoT devices is that their very small form factor allows them to carry just a tiny battery that might not be even possible to replace due to installation conditions, or too costly in terms of maintenance because of the massiveness of the network. This issue limits the lifetime of the network and compromises its reliability. Wireless energy transfer (WET) has emerged as a potential candidate to replenish sensors’ batteries or to sustain the operation of battery-free devices, as it provides a controllable source of energy over-the-air. Therefore, WET eliminates the need for regular maintenance, allows sensors’ form factor reduction, and reduces the battery disposal that contributes to the environment pollution. In this thesis, we review some WET-enabled scenarios and state-of-the-art techniques for implementing WET in IoT networks. In particular, we focus our attention on the deployment optimization of the so-called power beacons (PBs), which are the energy transmitters for charging a massive IoT deployment subject to a network-wide probabilistic energy outage constraint. We assume that IoT sensors’ positions are unknown at the PBs, and hence we maximize the average incident power on the worst network location. We propose a linear-time complexity algorithm for optimizing the PBs’ positions that outperforms benchmark methods in terms of minimum average incident power and computation time. Then, we also present some insights on the maximum coverage area under certain propagation conditions

Consolidating Bus Charger Deployment and Fleet Management for Public Transit Electrification: A Life-Cycle Cost Analysis Framework

Despite rapid advances in urban transit electrification, the progress of systematic planning and management of the electric bus (EB) fleet is falling behind. In this research, the fundamental issues affecting the nascent EB system are first reviewed, including charging station deployment, battery sizing, bus scheduling, and life-cycle analysis. At present, EB systems are planned and operated in a sequential manner, with bus scheduling occurring after the bus fleet and infrastructure have been deployed, resulting in low resource utilization or waste. We propose a mixed-integer programming model to consolidate charging station deployment and bus fleet management with the lowest possible life-cycle costs (LCCs), consisting of ownership, operation, maintenance, and emissions expenses, thereby narrowing the gap between optimal planning and operations. A tailored branch-and-price approach is further introduced to reduce the computational effort required for finding optimal solutions. Analytical results of a real-world case show that, compared with the current bus operational strategies and charging station layout, the LCC of one bus line can be decreased significantly by 30.4%. The proposed research not only performs life-cycle analysis but also provides transport authorities and operators with reliable charger deployment and bus schedules for single- and multi-line services, both of which are critical requirements for decision support in future transit systems with high electrification penetration, helping to accelerate the transition to sustainable mobility

A Novel Variable Geometry based Planar Inductor Design for Wireless Charging Application

In this thesis, the performance, modelling and application of a planar electromagnetic coil are discussed. Due to the small size profiles and their non‐contact nature, planar coils are widely used due to their simple and basic design. The uncertain parameters have been identified and simulated using ANSYS that has been run utilising a newly developed MATLAB code. This code has made it possible to run thousands of trials without the need to manually input the various parameters for each run. This has facilitated the process of obtaining all the probable solutions within the defined range of properties. The optimum and robust design properties were then determined. The thesis discusses the experimentation and the finite element modelling (FEM) performed for developing the design of planar coils and used in wireless chargers. In addition, the thesis investigates the performance of various topologies of planar coils when they are used in wireless chargers. The ANSYS Maxwell FEM package has been used to analyse the models while varying the topologies of the coils. For this purpose, different models in FEM were constructed and then tested with topologies such as circular, square and hexagon coil configurations. The described methodology is considered as an effective way for obtaining maximum Power transfer efficiency (PTE) with a certain distance on planar coils with better performance. The explored designs studies are, namely: (1) Optimization of Planar Coil Using Multi-core, (2) planar coil with an Orthogonal Flux Guide, (3) Using the Variable Geometry in a Planar coil for an Optimised Performance by using the robust design method, (4) Design and Integration of Planar coil on wireless charger. In the first design study, the aim is to present the behaviour of a newly developed planar coil, built from a Mu-metal, via simulation. The structure consists of an excitation coil, sensing coils and three ferromagnetic cores 2 located on the top, middle and bottom sections of the coil in order to concentrate the field using the iterative optimisation technique. Magnetic materials have characteristics which allows them to influence the magnetic field in its environment. The second design study presents the optimal geometry and material selection for the planar with an Orthogonal Flux Guide. The study demonstrates the optimising of the materials and geometry of the coil that provides savings in terms of material usage as well as the employed electric current to produce an equivalent magnetic field. The third design study presents the variable geometry in a planar inductor to obtain the optimised performance. The study has provided the optimum and robust design parameters in terms of different topologies such as circular, square and hexagon coil configurations and then tested, Once the best topology is chosen based on performance. The originality of the work is evident through the randomisation of the parameters using the developed MATLAB code and the optimisation of the joint performance under defined conditions. Finally, the fourth design study presents the development of the planar coil applications. Three shapes of coils are designed and experimented to calculate the inductance and the maximum power transfer efficiency (PTW) over various spacing distances and frequency