Configuring renewable energy supply for electric vehicle charging stations in Switzerland: Life cycle assessment and Multi-Objective optimization

• Evaluating the supply of renewable and innovative energy sources for electric vehicle charging stations. • Including solar photovoltaic, wind energy, hydroelectric power, solid oxide fuel cell systems and micro gas turbine utilizing bioenergy. • Analyzing the environmental impacts of these sources using life cycle assessment approach. • Developing a multi-objective optimization model that considers both the economic and environmental dimensions. • Utilizing the Non-dominated Genetic Algorithm to generate a range of optimal solutions in Pareto space. To minimize the environmental footprint of electric vehicle (EV) charging infrastructure, the electricity supply mix must be optimized beyond simply focusing on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. This study assesses the full life-cycle environmental impacts of five supply technologies (e.g., solar photovoltaic (PV) panels, wind turbines, hydropower, micro gas turbines, and solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs)) and determines their optimal allocation for Swiss EV charging stations by 2050. Using Swiss-specific Ecoinvent 3.8 inventories and ReCiPe 2016 endpoint indicators for life cycle assessment (LCA), results rank wind and hydropower as the least impactful, followed by solar PV. Biomethane-based micro gas turbines and SOFCs show the highest burdens across the categories of human health, ecosystem quality, and resource scarcity. A multi-objective Non-dominated Sorting Genetic Algorithm II (NSGA-II; four objectives: cost, human health, ecosystems, resource scarcity) with constraints (Switzerland’s 2050 deployment caps and a daily charging demand of 35 GWh) yields 35 Pareto-optimal solutions. Lowest-cost solutions (1.20–1.40 × 10 6 USD/day) rely heavily on PV and wind but increase environmental impacts by up to 70 %, whereas environmentally superior solutions raise costs to 2.17 × 10 6 USD/day and strongly favor wind turbines, hydropower, and on-site PV, virtually eliminating micro gas turbines and SOFCs. These results provide policymakers with explicit trade-offs for planning a sustainable Swiss EV charging infrastructure.