Key Considerations in the Development and Implementation of an Effective Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure

Today’s road transportation constitutes a major source of green-house gas (GHG) emissions in the US and the rest of the world exacerbating the climate change issues. Electric vehicles (EVs) use electricity as the energy source and, so long as they use renewable energy resources (RERs) to recharge the EV batteries, the broad deployment of EVs can considerably reduce CO2 emissions in road transportation. However, various barriers continue to impede would-be EV owners from making EV purchases. The single greatest deterrent to wider EV deployment has been shown to be the lack of an adequate EV charging infrastructure (EVCI) with stations located in sufficient number in close proximity of current and future EV owners/users. Such a lack arises in those EV owners/users that do not have charging facilities in their residences or along contemplated trajectories EV owners/users wish to travel. In this report, we provide a rather comprehensive overview of the vast range of considerations that need to be included in the EVCI establishment and implementation of adequate geographic and service coverage to meet the needs of EVs. We lay out the integration of the EVCI within the already existing network of infrastructures and discuss cross-infrastructure interdependencies by the use of a multi-layer framework that provides the basis for the EVCI analysis, planning and implementation. We specify the key technical, environmental and policy requirements for the services and functionalities that the EVCI must provide. The report provides the blueprint for an effective integration of the new EVCI within the network of the already established infrastructures. To effectively utilize the symbioses among these infrastructures we resort to the effective deployment of the new technology advances such as the advantageous deployment of smart grid advances, including the deployment of microgrid concepts for the effective harnessing of RER outputs and the storage of non-contemporaneously consumed electricity using new battery storage technology. The report makes clear the importance of the formulation and implementation of appropriate policies and procedures to allow the EVCI to evolve as the charging demand increases with the accelerated adoption of EVs. Although the entire EVCI development is carried out within the US context, the framework construction, analysis and the procedures discussed can be easily deployed to all of their adaptation to any other venue with a serious interest in the decarbonization of the transportation sector. Moreover, while the focus was on personal use vehicles, the entire scope and nature of the work can easily be extended to include vans, light trucks, buses and even heavy-duty electric vehicles (HDEVs)