Smart charging tariffs for electric vehicles

Electric mobility is one of the biggest challenges in the transportation sector. It is estimated that demand for electric vehicles will continue to grow, exceeding other types of power supply by 2025, and will approach 80% of all cars on the road in 2050. This increase in demand is mainly due to two relevant factors: i.e., the environmental sensitivity of users and the reduced usage costs. However, there are still several issues related to electric vehicles that do not totally convince those who must choose whether to buy an electric vehicle, among which one of the most relevant is related to the charging infrastructure. For instance, the current Italian charging infrastructure system will not be capable of supporting the forecasted electric mobility in future years. Customers, accessing the service, for different reasons, may have very different demands, and providing flat rates that are the same for all could lead to problems both on the service level guaranteed to potential customers and the profitability of the stations. This study analyses existing charging tariffs structure for AC charging and investigates their pitfalls on the effectiveness of the system. The focus is on AC charging tariffs since DC charging is usually devoted to occasionally charge of EVs for traveling long distances and thus should be located on highways paths. The main outcome of the analysis showed how mainly two different schemes are usually proposed by the operator a flat rate with a maximum monthly energy or a variable rate that depends only on the energy-charged, while power demand or time fee are not considered at all. A new smart tariff structure is proposed to incentivize virtuous charging behaviors. The analysis will be performed also through a simulation study of the new smart tariffs structure in the engineering campus of the University of Brescia, Italy.