Bi-Level Planning of Multi-Functional Vehicle Charging Stations Considering Land Use Types

Shuning Xu,Xiner Luo,Yuxuan Zhuang,Ghulam Abbas,Zhi Wu,Suyang Zhou,Jinqiao Du,Peng Yu

doi:10.3390/en13051283

Shuning Xu, Xiner Luo + Show 6 more

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https://doi.org/10.3390/en13051283

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Abstract

Locating and planning charging stations for Low-Emission Vehicles (LEVs) such as Battery Electric Vehicle (BEV), Hydrogen Fuel-Cell Vehicle (HFCV), and Natural Gas Vehicle (NGV) are becoming increasingly important for LEV users, government, and the automobile industry. Conventional planning approach of charging station usually plans single functional charging station that can only serve one kind of LEVs, and other factors such as fuel type, driving range, initial fuel tank level, and refueling time of the LEV are less considered in the planning stage. In this article, we propose a bi-level planning model to locate and size Multi-Functional Charging Station (MFCS) which can recharge BEV, HFCV, and NGV at the same time in a medium-sized city with different functional areas (e.g., residential area, industrial area, CBD area). We also established a method for generating a daily route considering vehicle attributes and user habits, and we loaded these traveling data into the upper model to select a set of optimal combinations of refueling station locations with a relatively high success ratio. In the lower model, we introduced the mathematical relationship between number of chargers and average user waiting time, and set the total social cost factor, including investment cost and waiting time cost, to evaluate each optimal combination, and then identified the optimum locational result and defined the size of each station. In the case study, we verify the proposed model in several scenarios and conclude that multifunctional refueling station performs better in terms of investment cost and users’ satisfaction level.

Highlights

The penetration of Battery Electric Vehicle (BEVs) and Natural Gas Vehicle (NGVs) has been growing rapidly [1], and a great number of buses and taxis have been converted to BEVs and NGVs [2]
We introduced the concept of Multi-Functional Charging Station (MFCS) in the charging stations planning domain, and proposed a mathematical model to estimate the relationship between the amount of MFCSs and average waiting time
We proposed a test-bench for evaluating the feasibility of the travel route and an algorithm for selecting optimal combinations of refueling station location with high success ratio in the upper model

Summary

Introduction

The main purpose of this paper is to identify the optimum location and sizing plan of MFCSs regarding user satisfaction level and investment cost. This is a multi-objective optimization problem, but there are many combinations of possible refueling station locations in a medium-sized city. It is nearly impossible to figure out an optimum result when you travel all the possible combinations with the aim of minimum cost as well as maximum user satisfaction level. In terms of the charger number in each station, we created a simplified method to estimate the relationship between charger number and waiting time, and introduce total social cost factor to judge the optimal solution in lower model. The main contributions of this paper are: We proposed a daily route generating method for LEVs including BEV, HFCV, and NFCV

Methods

Results

Conclusion