Scenario analysis on the social welfare of constructing photovoltaic storage and battery swapping stations for electric logistics vehicles on expressways

The electrification of long - distance logistics vehicles, which is an inevitable trend in the green development of the logistics industry, leads to a growing demand for fundamental charging and swapping facilities, such as the integrated photovoltaic storage and battery swapping stations (PSBSSs) on expressways. The study meticulously establishes a two - stage planning model for location selection and capacity determination of PSBSSs with the innovative method of density peak clustering (DPC), based on the charging data collected from “Beijing - Shanghai” expressway of China. The model will precisely specify the capacity configuration of photovoltaic, energy storage, and power grid for PSBSSs to minimize overall costs and enhance users’ satisfaction. To deeply explore the impact of the service level of PSBSSs on social welfare, a comprehensive scenario analysis is conducted, including satisfied, balanced, and saturated scenarios. It is clearly found that the saturated scenario has the best social benefits when the daily number of electric logistics vehicles (ELVs) waiting for battery swapping at all PSBSSs on the expressway ranges from 0 to 35; the balanced scenario is suitable from 35 to 61; after 61, the satisfied scenario is best. The paper provides valuable reference for constructing PSBSSs for ELVs on expressways to achieve the best social benefits of balancing the users’ satisfaction and investors’ profit.