Economic Analysis of High-Longevity Battery Capacity Fades for Electric Vehicles Supercharger Buffering Application

Current global trends show increasing numbers of electric vehicles on the road. The demand for fast charging is likely to keep pace with the adoption of electric vehicles. Fast charging places exceptionally high load demand on the electric utility infrastructure. These loads are beyond the capabilities of the existing infrastructure in many locations. The infrastructure power limitations can be offset by a high-power energy storage system (ESS). The crucial metrics for this system, in addition to meeting the peak load and energy demands of an EV battery, are cost and longevity. The main contribution of this article is to provide a methodology to assess the economic viability of an ESS solution for EVs supercharger buffering application. This methodology includes the model of aging effects on battery capacity, the overall efficiency, CAPEX, and OPEX of such system as well as the cost of the grid electricity purchased. This methodology is applied to two mature high-longevity lithium-ion battery technologies, namely, LFP and LTO. The results of this analysis suggest that there is no scenario where LFP is economically suitable. However, LTO shows the potential to be suitable in cases where there is a high demand from EV consumers for fast charging.