Document Type

Conference Paper

Rights

Available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Share Alike 4.0 International Licence

Disciplines

Electrical and electronic engineering

Publication Details

Paper presented at Irish Transport Research Network conference (ITRN), 2015, Galway, Ireland

Abstract

As Light weight Electric Vehicles (LEVs) are gaining interest, Technological University Dublin (DIT) realises the value and application of these vehicles for short distance commutes around its newly built campus of “Grangegorman” located in inner Dublin city. Introduction of the campus Photovoltaic Charging Station (PV-CS) that generates clean electricity from the sun and charges the LEV’s batteries can help achieving Ireland’s 2020 targets on both national and international levels. This paper highlights the design essentials of on-campus PV-CS, via assessments of: LEV load consumption, vehicle tracking and sizing of the storage unit. The pattern for LEVs charging and load consumption was studied on a daily basis utilising a designated energy meter while the typical journeys were tracked using a GPS device. The specified conceptual calculations resulted in appraisal of 5 possible design options. The components for each configuration are listed and the significance of each case discussed, where “coupled PV-grid with storage” option is chosen as the most viable choice of design. The potential size of storage batteries was projected with respect to average and peak demand variations. Battery density, weight and efficiency were identified as the main barriers, which will require future economic and technical investigations in this field.

Funder

Technological University Dublin(DIT)

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