The role of existing infrastructure of fuel stations in deploying solar charging systems, electric vehicles and solar energy: A preliminary analysis

Abstract

The lift off point for Electric vehicle (EV) sales is expected in the very near future even with oil prices that stayed cheap last few years and still inexpensive nowadays. Therefore, EV purchasers require convenient access to nationwide public charging stations infrastructure. The aim of this study is to assess the role of existing roofs of fuel Stations in deploying solar assisted electric vehicle charging systems (SAEVCS), electric vehicles and solar energy in Malaysia. PETRONAS petrol stations (PS) nationwide of Malaysia are selected to install solar charging systems on their existing infrastructure as a case study. Hybrid PV-Grid charging system is evaluated under different modes of grid power capacities (0–40 kW). The techno-economic feasibility indices are determined by using HOMER simulation tool. It is found that the estimated net average roof area of all PETRONAS stations is (500 m2); it will be considered as a representative for the roof area of each PETRONAS station. The produced PV power capacity at each station is found 85 kW. Over 1121 stations until the end of 2015, total PV power capacity is 95 MW with a total annual green energy production of 136 GWh/year; and a total battery bank capacity of 255 MWh. Total CO2 emissions that can be avoided by the nationwide PV charging systems is 88,559 ton/yr. The results showed that PS-SAEVCS, integrated with limited grid power line of (10 kW) can accommodate up to 2.14% of the initial EV penetration. Taking advantage of the FiT program, the cost of the PV/Grid-10 kW system can be retrieved in 6.3 years whereas the residual period (14.7 years) from the program is a net profit income. The attractive outcome from this study is that SAEVCS can be exploited as a station-to-grid (S2G) technique which is a worthy alternative to vehicle-to-grid (V2G) technology at the early years of system installation (initial stage of EV deployment).