Cost-effective analysis of hybrid electric vehicles charging station

Abstract

Electric vehicles (EVs) are a very essential part of the automobile industry and play a vital role in the development of the economy of a country. Due to their eco-friendly nature and lower operating cost, EVs have acquired great attention globally. Almost all leading automobile manufacturers are developing cost-efficient EVs. However, with the increase in the number of EVs day by day, the need for efficient charging stations to deliver economical charging needs to be developed. To charge these EVs from the conventional grids is an additional burden on these grids as more electricity will be required to charge these EVs, which may result in incremental energy production as well as the energy cost for the general consumers. These days, increasing the number of EVs can bring sustainability problems in Pakistan as the considered country already facing the worst electrical energy crisis in the last ten years. For this purpose, we must require some alternate methods for charging the EVs charging to avoid overloading on existing grids. The use of renewable energy resources (RERs) is an effective solution to tackle this shortage of power. Therefore, in this paper, a cost-effective solution is proposed by hybridizing the different types of RERs to charge the EVs from the charging station. A different combination of RERs is used as case studies for a specific area of Pakistan named Kallar Kahar. Simulation is performed on MATLAB/Simulink and energy cost is being compared for different case studies. The proposed hybrid power system used approximately 50% wind, 40% solar, and 10% biogas as RERs. The results show that case 4 is best among all which provides yearly power production of 375,220 kWh at a net annual cost of 43,174.06$/year while the net annual cost to provide the same power with the grid is 59,304$/year. There is a 1.37% reduction in the overall annual cost of the proposed charging station as compared to the utility grid.