Feasibility Study of Renewable Energy Integrated Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure

Introduction

Concept of smart cities envisages diffusion of plug-in hybrid electric vehicles that utilize electric power to run. Electric vehicles have gained attention of various researchers and stake- holders evaluating their potential benefits such as zero carbon emission and reducing dependency on fuel for the greater penetration of plug-in hybrid electric vehicles. Penetration of PHEV/EVs will definitely help overcome likely shortage of oil resources due to tremendously increasing consumption of fuel. In order to have acceptable market of electric vehicles, charging infrastructure is required to be deployed optimally keeping focus on cost concerns. An economic deployment of charging stations added with low costs onboard power electronics along with vehicles’ battery technology may be the major certain factors in the success of electric mobility i.e. PHEV running. While building charging infrastructure, a care is to be taken that charging stations’ standards and power rating must be synchronized with the type of electric vehicle. It is estimated that the sale of EVs is expected to increase as high as 64% by 2030. As per the expectations, making diffusion of EVs practicable, in future, more focus is needed to be paid on the development of appropriate charging facility for EVS recharging. Concentration of the present research community is to reduce recharging time of vehicle’s battery by supplying fairly high voltage &current rating.

However, high power supply to charging station may cause grid stability problem during high demand hours so it may require additional power generation to satisfy the power demand during peak load hours (Gil & Taiber, 2014). Therefore, impact of charging station load on the power grid and rate of vehicle charging is to be taken into account carefully while designing the charging station. Additionally, in view of optimal development of charging infrastructure, various energy storage technologies such as batteries, super capacitors, flywheels and etc. are under evaluation contributing in optimization of EV charging station. Simultaneously, distribution power generation (DPG) has received wide attention because of its advantages in terms of attention cutting down transmission investment, decreased operating cost and less losses in transmitting electric power with the improved grid stability during peak hours (Begovic, Pregelj, Rohatgi & Novosel, 2001; Lasseter, 2006). However, DPG system must stop its operation in case a power system failure is determined otherwise it may add negative impact on the power grid (ISC Committee, 2003). In this regard, concept of micro- grid has emerged to ensure reliable operation of the power grid (Tuttle & Baldick, 2012). In order to support economic deployment of EVs, mileage of e-vehicles needs to be enlarged and utilities may be required to design power infrastructure around the recharging station rescheduling provision of supply offering high quality of service in terms of reliability, continuity, low delay, and security.