Energy and environmental implications of electromobility implementation in Poland

Abstract

Number of fully electric cars on the roads worldwide is rapidly growing. Decreasing costs of manufacturing of Lithium-ion batteries together with strong ecology-based marketing may result in one third of electric cars in total number of passenger vehicles by 2040. Polish power industry and electricity grid must be ready to accommodate increasing and significant number of passenger electric cars. In Polish energy mix, which is dominated by coal, the ecological benefit from “green traffic” would be reduced, however not insignificant, but the main problem seems to be the preparation of the electricity grid for heavily increased demand for power. The paper presents analysis of the results of replacement petrol combustion cars with fully electrical on the basis of a range of ten modern examples of vehicles being offered on the market. Their effective ranges and power consumption have been used for prognosis for Polish electromobility and power industry. Equivalent CO2 emissions have been calculated for electric and combustion engine vehicles, as well as increasing power demand for their charging and amounts of coal which will be necessary to cover the increase power demands in electricity grid.