A national power infrastructure for charge-on-the-move

Abstract

It has been generally accepted that electrification of the road transport sector could be a critical step for coping with climate change. Charge-on-the-move is considered to be a critical enabling factor in moving towards electric vehicles and roads. The development of individual charging devices for implementing in-motion charging has been rapid but their integration with the road infrastructure at national scale is still in need of more comprehensive consideration. This work focuses on the challenges of the technology at the level of the system and aims to outline the performance requirements of a national power infrastructure suitable for implementing charge-on-the-move. A UK strategic overview suggests that the installation of a nationwide charging infrastructure of this type is economically feasible. From an estimation of electric vehicles' power requirements in conjunction with UK road traffic data the baseline of the anticipated power demand can be established. Finally, a simulation tool was proposed to investigate the application of dynamic charging and the effects of system design variables on important performance parameters of travelling electric vehicles.