Towards Reliable Design and Operation of Electric Road Systems for Heavy-Duty Vehicles Under Realistic Traffic Scenarios

Decarbonizing heavy-duty vehicles through electrification is a demanding task due to their large energy and power requirements. One promising solution to address this problem are electric road systems (ERS), which provide dynamic charging and traction power for electric vehicles. While their technological feasibility has been proven in numerous pilot projects, its reliability under realistic traffic scenarios is yet to be thoroughly investigated. In this paper, we define the reliability criteria for ERS and investigate how they are influenced by various realistic traffic scenarios. Then, the relationship between the ERS reliability criteria and the key system parameters such as the DC link voltage, distance between substations and feeding arrangement is analyzed. We find that the continuous current limit is the most critical criterion under heavy traffic conditions. Furthermore, we look into a number of run-time techniques to cope with electrical stress on the system and propose a technique based on successive approximation of the total current demand. We compare and evaluate the effectiveness of the run-time techniques and show that our proposed technique is able to improve ERS utilization while ensuring reliable operation.