Scenario development for future public charging infrastructure for EVs in the Netherlands

Abstract

The transition towards electric vehicles (EVs) is ongoing and to facilitate this a covering charging infrastructure is required. Part of this charging infrastructure should be placed within the public space which causes problems and requires the multiple involved stakeholders to collaborate in order to solve these challenges. How this physical public charging infrastructure for EVs will look like in the future remains unclear. However, having a clearer image of the future public charging infrastructure could be beneficial for the efficiency with which the stakeholders could work towards the future and also help policy makers. Therefore, the objective of this study is to create future scenarios on how the physical charging infrastructure could look like in the future streetscape of big urban cities in The Netherlands by taking a holistic approach. These different scenarios are compared with each other. The methods used in this study are a literature review, semi-structured interviews, and a multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA). The stakeholders which are interviewed for this study are the DSO, municipalities, CPO, hardware manufacturer and knowledge institutes which together provide different perspectives on the public charging infrastructure and could help with creating a holistic view on the future. The key uncertainties that were studied following from the literature review were the charging speed, the technical developments, clustering, smart solutions, parking policy, charging location, placement strategy, grid options, and the roll out solutions. This study showed that the future seems to be clear on some key elements of the charging infrastructure, while remaining unclear on other elements. Overall, however, there are some key elements of the system that seem to have support from most of the stakeholders interviewed and are therefore expected to be a part of the future public charging system. For the charging speed, the general expectation is that slow charging will remain the standard and that fast-charging squares could be used as additional charging option. The main charging technique to be used will remain the standard charging pole since innovative charging techniques like streetlight charging seem interesting but are still very expensive. Considering smart charging, the general notion is that this should be implemented in order to fulfill the existing charging demand while minimizing the impact on the grid. To do this however, a tariff structure should be designed where the CPO will be compensated in order to keep their business case attractive. Then, for the placement strategy data-driven seems to be the preferred option with strategic placement on special locations. Lastly, the grid expansion is expected to be required no matter what, although the extent to which this network expansion is needed depends on the extend of smart charging implementation. On the other key elements however, less consensus exists, and it is expected that these will vary more dependent on the decision maker. The different scenarios show all the different possibilities of combinations that are extracted from the interview data.