Assessing the Effect of Introducing Adaptive Charging Stations in Public EV Charging Infrastructures

The availability of publicly accessible chargingstations in urban areas can foster the widespread adoption ofElectric Vehicles (EVs). However, the introduction of publiccharging infrastructures will put an additional strain on thepower grid due to the possible occurrence of peak demands.This study is a first attempt to quantitatively assess the potentialbenefits of introducing in a public charging infrastructure smartcharging stations that are capable of modulating the currentsupplied to the EVs. Specifically, we assume that each chargingstation has limited power resources that must be shared amongthe EVs attached to its charging sockets according to a givenscheduling strategy. To evaluate the performance of such systemwe utilise SUMO, an open-source and widely used vehiculartraffic simulator, along with a highly realistic mobility trace forthe metropolitan area of Luxembourg City. Simulation resultsindicate that the use of simple charging strategies that takeadvantage of the modulation capabilities of smart chargingstations (e.g., fair-sharing or token-based scheduling approaches)can effectively mitigate the impact of EV charging demands on thepower grid with a limited degradation of charging performance.However, our results also confirm that a significant investmenton charging infrastructure might be necessary to guarantee anon-blocking charging service.