Dynamic EV Charging Pricing Methodology for Facilitating Renewable Energy With Consideration of Highway Traffic Flow

Electric vehicles (EVs) are expected to play a critical role in future transportation systems. A number of countries have published roadmaps aiming to facilitate the adoption of EVs on the road. It is estimated that existing charging facilities will not be able to satisfy the tremendous charging demands of a dramatically increasing number of EVs. Following the rapid development of artificial intelligence and mobile communication technology, certain charging pricing mechanism is expected to influence the charging behavior of EV drivers. In order to maximize the working efficiency of highway charging facilities and the consumption of the renewable energy near charging facilities, this paper proposes a pricing methodology taking into account the charging facility service ratio, traffic flow and renewable energy generation. To support the adoption of the proposed pricing methodology, forecasts of hour-by-hour traffic flow and renewable generation as well as calculation of the shortest paths to different charging stations (CSs) are investigated. A road network testbed based on the Dublin traffic network is established to evaluate the proposed pricing methodology. It is discovered that for certain wind-rich CSs, the proposed pricing methodology can increase the consumption rate of wind energy by up to 82.97%, with an average improvement of 30.73%; for certain solar-rich CSs, it can improve the level of solar energy consumption by up to 59.50% and an average increase of 29.28% is achieved. The proposed pricing methodology can also reduce traffic jams to some extent at both peak and off-peak times.