EV charging stations for sustainable urban transport electrification in the Arabian Peninsula: Performance assessment, social-economic aspects, opportunities, implementation challenges and strategic policies

• We design a hybrid energy system to satisfy the charging needs of EVs in urban environments. • HGWCSA is employed to optimize the system's sizing and operational performance of the charging system. • Socio-economic opportunities, strategic policies, and implementation challenges for e-mobility are provided. • Comparative analyses demonstrate that the HGWCSA achieves the lowest levelized cost of energy. • Sensitivity analyses validate the optimized system's adaptability and long-term viability across diverse operational cases. The rapid adoption of electric vehicles, renewable energy sources, and advancements in battery technologies necessitate efficient, sustainable, and socio-economically viable interdependent energy systems. The rising penetration of EVs intensifies interdependencies between urban transport and electric power systems through charging infrastructures. This study presents a novel hybrid energy system that integrates renewable energy sources such as solar photovoltaic and wind turbines, conventional diesel generators, battery storage, and distribution grids to reliably satisfy the charging demands of electric vehicles in urban environments. A Hybrid Grey Wolf Cuckoo Search Algorithm (HGWCSA), which synergistically combines the exploitation capabilities of Grey Wolf Optimization (GWO) and the exploration strengths of Cuckoo Search (CS), is employed to optimize the system’s sizing and operational performance of the charging system. The primary advantages of HGWCSA include faster convergence, superior solution accuracy, and robust capability to avoid local optima. The effectiveness and innovation of HGWCSA are validated through comparative performance assessments against conventional metaheuristic algorithms. The study further contributes novel insights by thoroughly assessing techno-economic feasibility, socio-economic opportunities, strategic policies, and implementation challenges within the context of sustainable e-mobility from a case study perspective in the Arabian Peninsula. Comprehensive simulations and comparative analyses demonstrate that the HGWCSA achieves the lowest Levelized cost of energy (LCOE) at $0.08/kWh and the minimum Total net present cost (TNPC) of $103,267, significantly reducing CO 2 emissions compared to traditional optimization methods. Furthermore, sensitivity analyses validate the optimized system’s adaptability and long-term viability across diverse operational scenarios, significantly advancing sustainable urban transport electrification strategies.