We take a look at 3 major hurdles that need to be crossed before EV charging stations become as commonplace as conventional “gas stations”.
Range anxiety is the fear that a vehicle has insufficient range to reach its destination and thus leave the vehicle and its occupants stranded – a term used in reference to battery electric vehicles (BEVs). This is a common complaint among many EV owners and is a major factor behind most people still choosing a conventional ICE vehicle over a BEV.
The number of chargers available globally rose by 44% to 5.2 million last year, and this trend is set to grow exponentially in the years to come, as governments put EVs at the top of their policy agendas and private players swarm to the sector in increasing numbers looking to cash-in on, what is essentially, the future of vehicular transport. It is estimated that there are about 1 billion cars on the road currently – when you compare this to the number of chargers currently available, the viability of EVs completely replacing cars is still visibly some way off. With new battery technology and advanced vehicle design, the gap is closing at a rapid rate, but there are significant hurdles the sector still has to overcome, in order to make EVs as commonplace as conventional ICE vehicles are today. This article focuses on various common challenges to faster global dissemination of charging infrastructure and what the potential solutions could be.
EV charging is demanding more from existing power grids – demand side management is crucial to prevent oversizing of power systems
Widespread adoption of EVs and associated charging infrastructure will be a major source of increased power demand on power systems. Uncoordinated or uncontrolled charging will further exacerbate this issue and will pose a challenge for power suppliers especially if this increased demand coincides with peak demand periods and pushes up the peak demand, translating to the need for additional generation capacity. Clustering due to increased EV uptake can also lead to local overloading of distribution networks, resulting in the need for network upgradation.
Provision of demand-side response (DSR) services are crucial to overcoming this particular challenge and ensure power systems don’t have to be oversized in order to meet increasing EV charging demands. EVs can minimize impacts on a power system by shaping the electricity demand pattern through shifting charging activities to periods of low electricity demand. Vehicle-to-Grid (V2G) functionality of vehicles will also allow vehicles to supply electricity to the grid when required. The properties of EV batteries allow very fast and precise response to control signals as well as the ability to spread demand over longer time periods.
Policies focused on faster deployment of charging infrastructure should complement EV deployment targets
Policy support for charging infrastructure deployment effectively complements measures that promote EV vehicle uptake. Currently most policies in the space revolve around vehicle uptake and emission reduction targets rather than incentives or policies specifically surrounding charging infrastructure. Private charging infrastructure installations for cars can be supported via fiscal incentives and regulatory measures. These policies can be justified because private charging generally has less impact on the grid as they enable night time charging and tend to use lower wattage than public fast chargers. Regulations that require new or refurbished buildings to be EV ready, especially parking spaces would enable proper underlying grid infrastructure for private charging installations. In addition, property laws should be adapted to accelerate approval procedures for private charging infrastructure installation by EV owners.
Publicly accessible charging infrastructure needs to compliment private infrastructure in order to make widespread EV adoption feasible. Even though the proportion of publicly accessible charging points is much lower today, they will be a crucial component of the EV charging infrastructure moving forward. Clear deployment targets for public chargers need to be defined along with EV deployment targets. Financial support for setting up of public charging points will reduce investment risk and in case of public private partnerships, will allow the risk to be shared between private players and the public sector. In addition to this, there needs to be open standards for vehicle-charging point communication and payment as a means to enable inter-operability between charging networks, increase innovation and competition and reduce costs for drivers.
Lack of standardization and interoperability is slowing down installation of new charging infrastructure
In the current EV charging space, there are numerous standards and communication protocols employed by various players across countries and major regions. The Japanese have the CHAdemo, the Chinese have the GB/T and the Europeans have CCS and another larger EV manufacturer has its own separate standard which are only applicable to its own vehicles. This variability in standards is causing uncertainty for private players entering the space as to which standards to employ to their own charging systems. This is acting as a deterrent to many private players from entering the space as most of them are waiting for better unified standards which are applicable across most EV charging types. Recent efforts by various nations to unify these standards are going a long way towards accelerating EV charging infrastructure adoption. The example of Singapore is significant, where numerous announcements for charging infrastructure installations followed soon after the government’s own announcement of a unified standard for EV charging in the city-state. If this can be extrapolated to a global perspective, it is clear that a unified global standard will accelerate adoption of new EV charging infrastructure significantly.
The challenges may seem daunting, but none of them are insurmountable.
The gap between production introduction and infrastructure investment has been repeated many times throughout history – Thomas Edison’s first patent for the light bulb was filed in 1879, well before the existence of a North American power grid. But the light bulb and electric motor technology fuelled development of new national infrastructure to bring society up to date with new technology rather than forcing new technology to fit into existing inadequate infrastructure – and there is no reason to believe the same won’t happen with EV charging infrastructure as well.
