A Cost-Effective Standalone E-bike Charging Station Powered by Hybrid Wind and Solar Power System Including Second-Life BESS

This paper presents the design and implementation of a cost-effective standalone e-bike charging station where the power is supplied by photovoltaic (PV) panels and small wind turbines (WTs). The intermittence of power sources is mitigated through an intelligent prediction algorithm helping therefore to reduce the required battery energy storage (BESS) capacity. Moreover, the BESS is assembled using second-life battery (SLB) packs, whose cost is much lower than brand-new ones. In order to minimize the investment cost, the optimal number of PV panels, WTs and SLB packs is determined considering three constraints. The first and second ones aim to keep the power and the state of charge of the BESS within proper range, ensuring that the BESS works properly. The last constraint points to reduce the loss of power supplied, guaranteeing that the charging station meets most of the load demand under different weather conditions. Moreover, with the lack of available historical data of the load for e-bike charging stations, a load model is developed by considering the time of the day and the weather conditions. A case study is presented and discussed and demonstrates the effectiveness of the designed 1kW e-bike standalone charging station using measured historical weather data installed in the city of Montreal, Canada.