Optimal Sizing and Location of Electric Vehicle Charging Stations Considering Carbon Footprint of Construction

The growing adoption of Electric Vehicles (EVs) in urban areas aims to reduce fuel costs and Carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from conventional transportation. To support this transition, the expansion of Electric Vehicle Charging Stations (EVCSs) has become essential to meet the increasing charging demand. However, although EV usage can reduce CO2 emissions in the transportation sector, existing planning approaches often overlook the CO2 emissions generated by the construction of EVCSs. This omission may undermine the environmental benefits of EV adoption, as the cost of mitigating construction-related emissions could offset the savings from reduced transportation emissions. To address this issue, this study proposes a novel EVCS expansion framework that integrates construction-related CO2 emission cost into the overall optimization model. The proposed approach jointly considers the costs incurred by Charging Station Owners (CSOs), EV users, and the environmental impact from EVCS construction. A realistic urban road network and EV charging behavior are modeled in detail, and Binary Differential Evolution (BDE) is employed to determine the optimal sizing and locations of EVCSs. The results demonstrate that incorporating construction-related CO2 emission costs leads to a total cost reduction of 2.06% compared to conventional methods that do not consider such CO2 emissions. These findings emphasize the importance of incorporating environmental externalities, such as construction-related CO2 emissions, into infrastructure planning to reduce long-term costs, mitigate potential carbon tax impacts, and support cost-effective and sustainable EVCS deployment.