Preliminary Planning Assessment of Rooftop Photovoltaics for Supporting Electric-Vehicle Charging at Petrol Stations in Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabia’s transition towards electric mobility requires scalable charging infrastructure that can reduce dependence on grid-supplied energy and support national sustainability objectives. This study presents a preliminary planning assessment of petrol-station rooftops in Riyadh and Jeddah for photovoltaic (PV)-supported electric vehicle charging. Gross rooftop areas were measured for an exploratory, non-probability sample of 30 petrol stations—20 in Riyadh and 10 in Jeddah—using Google Earth Pro. A retained aggregate PVsyst output was used as a historical technical reference, while HelioScope was used only for preliminary layout visualisation. The retained 5.968 GWh/year PVsyst result cannot be independently reproduced from the materials currently available to the authors because the complete station-level project files and meteorological inputs were not preserved. A low–central–high scenario framework accounts for usable rooftop fractions of 70–90%, irradiance multipliers and combined operational-retention assumptions. The assumption-based scenarios produce 3.572–5.640 GWh/year, with a central value of 4.536 GWh/year. The 25, 40, and 60 kWh charging cases are defined as battery-side energy delivered per session and, after applying a 95% charging efficiency, correspond to approximately 71,800–172,400 energy-equivalent sessions annually under the central scenario. The PV-only economic screening gives an LCOE of USD 0.053–0.113/kWh and a simple payback period of 6.8–19.0 years under a full-self-consumption assumption; it excludes chargers, battery storage, structural reinforcement, and grid upgrades. The findings support further field investigation but do not establish complete EV-charging-infrastructure feasibility, national potential, or grid-independent operation.