Digital twin enabled transition towards the smart electric vehicle charging infrastructure: A review

Abstract

Public charging infrastructure developments are the top agenda in both industrialised and developing countries during the global transition from fossil fuel vehicles to electric vehicles (EVs). Currently, the fast deployment of digital twins in the energy and transportation sectors is accelerating the fusion of the energy system and digital space, which advances the smartness of charging infrastructures to the next level. This study presents a smart EV charging infrastructure framework composed of a green power generation network, an energy storage network, and a charging network. The digital twin, as an enabling technology, is applied to realise essential smart features for the EV charging infrastructure, including cognisant, adaptive, taskable, and ethical. Based on the proposed smart charging station framework, we systematically review the existing digital twin implementations in the smart charging infrastructure. The review shows the smart charging infrastructure supported by digital twins enhances operational and managerial efficiency, economic, environmental, and social sustainability, and scalability of charging infrastructure. Further research on smart charging station architecture improvement, charging station digital twin standardisation, and best practices for smart charging station digital twins are encouraged.