Suitability of Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure and Impact on Power Grid Due to Electrification of Roadway Transportation with Electric Vehicles

Understanding the types of electrical vehicle charging infrastructure for automobiles, buses, trucks, and motorcycles is key where electrification is concerned. Starting from slow to fast and ultra-fast charging equipment commercially available, the grid is often exposed to intermittent loading and the addition of elements that impact stability. This study is focused on documenting the challenges associated with the addition of EV charging infrastructure to current power systems. By studying available charging options for each type of vehicle, a planned selection of sites and capacity of chargers will allow customers to learn when, ideally, to be plugged in. Previous studies documented a typical capacity of charging infrastructure required based on the anticipated number of electric vehicles in the next thirty years. However, there is a need for the establishment of impacts due to connected EV loads. Unlike known demand curves for loads such as lighting, power, process equipment, and so on, the prediction of EV demand curves is significantly limited due to a lack of past data. By utilizing publicly available data on existing charging infrastructure, a detailed layout of additional chargers for a typical city in the United States is a subject of study in this paper. Some of the concepts in accurately predicting suitable types of infrastructure (such as slow vs fast and ultra-fast) for each vehicle type become a subject of importance in electrification and become key to this transition. Some limitations of this study include a lack of accurate forecasting and shifting user preference to other technologies.