Abstract
On-road or dynamic wireless charging systems constitute electrified highways on which electricity from the electric grid is supplied to electric vehicles wirelessly as they travel along the road, rather than the vehicles solely relying on the storage capacity of batteries. Electrification of highways can contribute to decarbonization in the transport sector and provide a solution to range anxiety, high battery costs and long charging times of electric vehicles. However, installing the wireless charging infrastructure along highways is costly. This paper presents a modeling approach that has been developed based on key variables of dynamic wireless charging systems to minimize the infrastructure cost so that the deployment of electrified highways could be economically viable. The overall investment for the dynamic wireless charging systems consists of different types of costs, including those for inverters, road-embedded power transmitter devices, control devices and grid connections. The costs of the different components depend on traffic flows but to different extents, resulting from the amount of energy demanded in a specific section of the electrified highway (i.e. the traffic flows are section-dependent). It is shown that the charging power level that could vary from 165 kW to 400 kW and road coverage ratio of an electrified highway are interrelated with regard to the economic context. Based on the developed model, the configuration and deployment of a proposed electrified highway in Eastern Canada are designed with an optimal charging power level and road coverage ratio or intermittency, thus achieving the best cost effectiveness. Intermittent electrified highways have the potential to reduce overall investment cost over fully electrified highways. In addition, the cost break-up of various components of the dynamic wireless charging system is estimated.