On the Mobile Communication Requirements for the Demand-Side Management of Electric Vehicles

Abstract

The rising concerns about global warming and environmental pollution are increasingly pushing towards the replacement of road vehicles powered by Internal Combustion Engines (ICEs). Electric Vehicles (EVs) are generally considered the best candidates for this transition, however, existing power grids and EV management systems are not yet ready for a large penetration of EVs, and the current opinion of the scientific community is that further research must be done in this field. The so-called Vehicle-to-Grid (V2G) concept plays a relevant role in this scenario by providing the communication capabilities required by advanced control and Demand-Side Management (DSM) strategies. Following this research trend, in this paper the communication requirements for the DSM of EVs in urban environments are discussed, by focusing on the mobile communication among EVs and smart grids. A specific system architecture for the DSM of EVs moving inside urban areas is proposed and discussed in terms of the required data throughput. In addition, the use of a Low-Power Wide-Area Network (LPWAN) solution-the Long-Range Wide Area Network (LoRaWAN) technology-is proposed as a possible alternative to cellular-like solutions, by testing an experimental communication infrastructure in a real environment. The results show that the proposed LPWAN technology is capable to handle an adequate amount of information for the considered application, and that one LoRa base station is able to serve up to 438 EVs per cell, and 1408 EV charging points.Energies 2018, 11, 1220 2 of 27 in the last 40 years, rising from 2.8 GtCO 2 eq of 1970 to 7 GtCO 2 eq in 2010. It is worth noting that the main contribution of this increase is due to road vehicles, whose GHG emissions rose in the same period by almost 200% [2]. A further issue of concern is the contribution of road vehicles to the air pollution in urban centers. Recent studies demonstrated that conventional ICEs are responsible for the emission of the 73% of total urban air pollutants, and also revealed that the growth in chronic health problems in urban areas can be directly related to transportation systems [3]. As a consequence, several restrictions on ICE vehicles have been proposed in European cities, such as the progressive diesel ban in Paris (entered into force since 2015), and the Ultra-Low Emission Zone (ULEZ) that will come into force in London starting from April 2019 [4].Electric Vehicles (EVs), in particular Battery EVs (BEVs), are generally considered the best candidates for the replacement of conventional ICE vehicles, thanks to their independence from the primary energy source, and to the total absence of direct GHG and pollutant emissions. Recent studies demonstrated that BEVs are the less carbon-intensive option if compared to other solutions, such as Plug-in Hybrid EVs (PHEVs) and Hybrid EVs (HEVs) [5], and that the large penetration of EVs could help to significantly reduce indirect GHG emissions and air pollution in urban areas [6,7].Whilst high investment costs and low energy densit...

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