Comparison of decentralised fast-charging strategies for long-distance trips with electric vehicles

Abstract

Despite noticeable improvements in electric vehicle (EV) technology, EV charging time remains high, and the lack of fast-charging infrastructure extends the travelling time for long-distance trips even further. Charging strategies to coordinate EVs’ charging plans dynamically will help reduce station waiting times. This paper aims to quantify and compare the performances of two decentralised strategies using regular information-sharing between EVs and stations to estimate future waiting time in charging stations accurately. The communication strategy relies only on the communication of optimal charging plan computed by EVs to stations without any reservation. In contrast, the reservation strategy enables additionally the booking of optimal charging time slots. In a dedicated multi-agent simulation framework, we tested both strategies on different levels of infrastructure saturation. The communication strategy shows the best performance especially when combined with more frequent charging stops.