Public charging requirements for battery electric long-haul trucks in Europe: a trip chain approach

Contact details:

wasim.shoman at chalmers.se 

Abstract of the research:

Heavy-duty vehicles (HDV) account for less than 2-5% of the vehicles on the road in Europe but contribute to 15-22% of CO₂ emissions from road transport. Battery electric trucks (BETs) could be deployed on a large scale to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. However, they require sufficient charging infrastructure to support long-haul operations. Therefore, assessing the required charging locations, energy, and power requirements is critical. We use a trip-chain-based model to derive charging requirements for BETs in long-haul operation (travel times over 4.5 hours or over 360 km distance traveled) for Europe in 2030. We convert an origin-destination (OD) matrix into trip chains combined with European truck driving regulations to derive break and rest stops. We show that an average charging area (defined as a 25´25 km² square with each square that could include multiple charging stations and parking lots of multiple charging points) needs to have four to five times more overnight than megawatt charging points. We estimate that about 40,000 overnight charging points (50-100 kW, combined charging system, CCS) and about 9,000 megawatt charging system (MCS, 0.7 – 1.2 MW) points are required for 15% of trucks as BETs in long-haul operation. On average, 8 and 2 CCS and MCS chargers are required per charging area, and each MCS and CCS serve, on average, 11 and 2 BETs daily, respectively. Public charging entails about 110 GWh daily electricity demand in each charging area. The model can be applied to any region with similar data. Future work can consider improving the queuing model, assumptions regarding regional differences of BET penetration, and heterogeneity of truck sizes and utilization.

The methodology:

We develop a method to place charger locations in Europe that meets the demand of goods movements between regions while following EU driving regulations. The spatial resolution of regions is based on the Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics (NUTS)-3 regions. The annual flow of goods transported by HDV is identified using the ETISplus dataset. We develop a travel pattern for the HDV to convert flows into trip chains with the traversed LHT number. The traveled routes between the regions are mapped. Locations of short period stops, i.e., breaks, and long period stops, i.e., rests, are allocated/assigned along traveled routes to construct a trip chain for each moving HDV. Break and rest locations for all moving HDVs are aggregated to suggest energy requirements if assuming these HDVs are BETs. The aggregated energy to charge stopped BETs is used to identify the number and type of chargers within each suggested charging station.

Datasets details

The presented datasets contain spatial information for generating charger stations with specifications according to charging needs. The datasets contain information about: Transport network model and edges, Transported flows, routes and flow center information data, region centers , and Planned transport infrastructure. 

The first dataset titled 'ChargerLocations' contains infromation about the locations of suggested charging stations, number and type of chargers, and number of visited electrified trucks in 2030. It is a shapefile with the following details for its fields:

The second dataset titled 'flowFile' with information about the transported flow between regions and the transported routes. The dataset is in "CSV" format. Details for its fields are explained as follows (source: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S235234092101060X):

Description of variables used in the NUTS-3 regions dataset (02_NUTS-3-Regions). The dataset is in "CSV" format. (source: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S235234092101060X))

Description of variables used in the network edges list (Updated_04_network-edges). The dataset is in "CSV" format. (source: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S235234092101060X))