Charging Strategies to Minimize Greenhouse Gas Emissions of Electrified Delivery Vehicles

Woody, Maxwell; Vaishnav, Parth; Craig, Michael; Lewis, George Cornewall; Keoleian, Gregory A.

doi:10.1021/acs.est.1c03483

Cited by 15 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 84 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…30 BEVs could be charged during hours of the day with lower than average emissions 31 and using charging strategies that maximize battery life span. 32 Shorter routes could be served by vehicles with smaller batteries (reducing emissions from battery production and improving fuel economy by reducing weight). And per mile emissions could be lowered by extending vehicle use beyond the expected average 127,140-mile lifetime.…”

Section: ■ Results and Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…BEVs could be deployed on routes that are longer than average such that the 20% of BEVs in the fleet could account for 25% of the fleet’s miles, for example . BEVs could be charged during hours of the day with lower than average emissions and using charging strategies that maximize battery life span . Shorter routes could be served by vehicles with smaller batteries (reducing emissions from battery production and improving fuel economy by reducing weight).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Life Cycle Greenhouse Gas Emissions of the USPS Next-Generation Delivery Vehicle Fleet

Woody

Vaishnav

Craig

et al. 2022

Environ. Sci. Technol.

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The United States Postal Service (USPS) plans to purchase 165,000 next-generation delivery vehicles (NGDVs) between 2023 and 2032. The USPS submitted an environmental impact statement (EIS) for two NGDV procurement scenarios: (1) 90% internal combustion engine vehicles (ICEVs) and 10% battery electric vehicles (BEVs) (“ICEV scenario”) and (2) 100% BEVs (“BEV scenario”). To correct several significant deficiencies in the EIS, we conduct a cradle-to-grave life cycle greenhouse gas (GHG) assessment of these two scenarios. Our analysis improves upon the USPS’s EIS by including vehicle production and end-of-life emissions, future grid decarbonization, and more accurate vehicle operating emissions. In our base case, we find that the ICEV and BEV scenarios would result in 15% greater and 8% fewer GHG emissions, respectively, than the USPS estimate. Favorable vehicle and grid development would result in 63% lower BEV scenario emissions than the USPS estimate. Consequently, we calculate a cumulative lifetime emission reduction of 57–82% (14.7–21.4 Mt CO2e) from procuring 100% BEVs instead of 10% BEVs, compared to the USPS’s estimate of 10.3 Mt. Given the long NGDV lifetimes, committing to the ICEV scenario squanders an ideal use case for BEVs, jeopardizes meeting our climate goals, and forgoes potential climate and environmental justice co-benefits.

show abstract

Section: ■ Results and Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Life Cycle Greenhouse Gas Emissions of the USPS Next-Generation Delivery Vehicle Fleet

Woody

Vaishnav

Craig

et al. 2022

Environ. Sci. Technol.

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…This demand can come either directly through vehicle charging or indirectly through the production of electrolytic fuels ( 21 ). The added demand can increase grid-related emissions if renewable availability and other grid dynamics are not considered ( 22 , 23 ). Coordinating the charging of connected vehicles with renewable electricity availability can offset the required capacity of other grid resources, such as natural gas power plants and energy storage, reducing system costs and ensuring emissions reductions.…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Emissions and Air Quality Implications of Enabling On-Road Vehicles as Flexible Load Through Widescale Zero Emission Vehicle Deployment in California

Forrest

Lane

Tarroja

et al. 2022

Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation R

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This study assesses the impacts of on-road light- to heavy-duty zero emission vehicle (ZEV) adoption and charging protocols on greenhouse gas emissions for the years 2030 and 2045 in California, and on air quality for the year 2045. Two scenarios are addressed: (1) a “business-as-usual” (BAU) scenario with modest ZEV adoption, and (2) a “carbon neutral” scenario that achieves carbon neutrality by 2045 with proactive ZEV adoption. Electricity load for fueling ZEVs is projected, including electricity fuel for battery electric vehicles and electrolytic hydrogen for fuel cell electric vehicles. This electric load was input into an electric grid dispatch model and electric grid and air quality analyses were conducted. The results revealed that although medium- and heavy-duty vehicles (MHDVs) are projected to have lower total electric load associated with fueling, they will require roughly double the electricity for hydrogen production of light-duty vehicles. For the electric grid scenarios examined, ZEV loads increased peak electricity demand by 3% to 6% in 2030 and 22% to 31% in 2045. MHDV time-of-use and smart charging strategies were equally able to shift charging demand to off-peak times. Higher ZEV loads under the carbon neutral scenario increased natural gas use up to 6% in 2030 and energy storage requirements up to 45% in 2045 compared with the BAU scenario. The analyses also found that achieving carbon neutrality through ZEV adoption had the cobenefit of significantly reducing ground-level ozone and PM2.5 concentrations in key regions of California, providing health savings of approximately $28 billion annually in 2045.

show abstract

“…The benefits of electrified delivery vehicles displacing conventional diesel delivery vehicles include reduced air pollution (CO 2, NO x , PM 2.5 , PM 10 ) (Giordano et al, 2018;Hawkins et al, 2013;Marmiroli et al, 2020) and potential cost savings (Taefi, 2016). However, the emissions benefits and potential cost savings vary depending on where, when, and how these vehicles are charged (Arvesen et al, 2021;McLaren et al, 2016;Miller et al, 2020;Woody et al, 2021).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Optimizing future cost and emissions of electric delivery vehicles

Woody

Craig

Vaishnav

et al. 2022

J of Industrial Ecology

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Electrification of delivery vehicles will play an important role in decarbonizing the transportation sector. As electricity-generating technologies vary regionally and temporally, where electric vehicles are deployed and when they are charged will determine the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and cost consequences of delivery vehicle electrification. We couple a vehicle charging model with a dataset that provides hourly projections of marginal electricity cost and marginal emissions factors across 134 electricity balancing areas in the United States. We calculate the cost and emissions of charging an electric delivery vehicle over a 10-year service life (2021-2030) at different times of day and in different locations. Using a multiobjective optimization framework, we explore two potential goals-minimizing GHG emissions and minimizing cost-and investigate the tradeoffs between those goals. We show emissions ranging from 136 to 485 g CO 2 /mile, and costs ranging from 0.79 to 3.18 cents/mile depending on location and optimization weighting. We demonstrate the impact of charge time-of-day optimization frequency, showing emissions reductions of 19-62% by choosing the optimal charging time every day, rather than annually. We show that the benefits of electrification are reduced when potential charge times are constrained (e.g., if charging must take place overnight), and we calculate the carbon price needed to align cost-optimized and emissions-optimized charge timing in different regions.Our results highlight the opportunity to reduce cost and emissions by strategically charging at certain times of day and show the importance of accounting for spatial and temporal variability when developing effective carbon-reduction strategies.

show abstract

Charging Strategies to Minimize Greenhouse Gas Emissions of Electrified Delivery Vehicles

Cited by 15 publications

References 84 publications

Life Cycle Greenhouse Gas Emissions of the USPS Next-Generation Delivery Vehicle Fleet

Life Cycle Greenhouse Gas Emissions of the USPS Next-Generation Delivery Vehicle Fleet

Emissions and Air Quality Implications of Enabling On-Road Vehicles as Flexible Load Through Widescale Zero Emission Vehicle Deployment in California

Optimizing future cost and emissions of electric delivery vehicles

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About