• Transport Research

The report gives an extensive overview of the results of the project entity Electric Commercial Vehicles (ECV) that was active 2012–2016 under EVE programme of the Finnish Funding Agency for Technology and Innovation (Tekes). Contributions to this final report have been made as articles written by several project participants. All the key themes of the project are covered: battery technologies and their applications, electric powertrains and electric vehicles, city buses, non-road mobile machinery, electric commercial vehicle systems and charging, as well as electric vehicles in connection with power grid. Several businesses and products have been launched during the project's span, and continue to emerge and develop in this dynamically progressing field.

The report gives an extensive overview of the results of the project entity Electric Commercial Vehicles (ECV) that was active 2012–2016 under EVE programme of the Finnish Funding Agency for Technology and Innovation (Tekes). Contributions to this final report have been made as articles written by several project participants. All the key themes of the project are covered: battery technologies and their applications, electric powertrains and electric vehicles, city buses, non-road mobile machinery, electric commercial vehicle systems and charging, as well as electric vehicles in connection with power grid. Several businesses and products have been launched during the project's span, and continue to emerge and develop in this dynamically progressing field.

Master's thesis in Energy, Environment and Society This thesis explores the solar production potential of Stavangerregionen Havn and Risavika and its possible contribution to the local energy challenges within the Elnett21 projects, that arises with the transport electrification strategy from the Norwegian government. The aim of this study is first to show the solar electricity generation potential for the given buildings and then investigate an economic long-term performance of those projects. Furthermore, will be explored how the integration of local produced electricity can be supported by battery storage systems. The thesis uses a Mixed-Method approach which gives the option to explore qualitatively the possibilists and challenges of the concept of system decentralization, decentral solar production and battery storage. Additionally, is through the utilisation of the K2 and PVsyst software the simulated electricity generation potential explored on which bases the quantitative analysis and economic evaluation is executed. Our analysis shows that Stavangerregionen Havn and Risavika have great electricity production potential which could be utilised. Furthermore, gives the economic long-term evaluation a positive output for the Ferry-Terminal as main case study object. We concluded that through the development of local generated solar electricity and the utilisation of battery storage significant contribution towards Elnett21 and the challenges are possible. Dependent on the size of future solar production and battery storage capacity can the contribution be bigger or smaller.

Urban activities, including urban mobility, play a crucial role in climate change mitigation. Urban mobility is currently at a crossroads. In a business as usual scenario, CO2 emissions from urban transportation will grow by one fourth by 2050. Nevertheless, during this period, it may drop by about one third. To make the drop happen, we need to introduce comprehensive policies and measures. Electrifying urban transit is one feasible solution. This study investigates whether and how urban water transit systems have been electrified—a means of transport which has not been well researched in this respect. A multilevel perspective and the comparative case study method were employed to answer the research questions. The comprehensive study focussed on 24 cities representing the current experience in planning and operating water transport, based mainly on secondary, primarily qualitative, data, such as industry reports, feasibility studies, urban policies, and scientific papers. The primary outcome is that urban electric passenger ferries left their market niches and triggered a radical innovation, diffusing into mainstream markets. However, urban diversity results in various paths to electrification, due to the system’s physical characteristics, local climate and transport policies, manufacturing capacity, green city branding, and the innovativeness of international ferry operators. Three dominant transition pathways were identified—a comprehensive carbon neutral policy, a transport sector policy, and a research and development policy. From a multilevel perspective, cities can be considered a bridge between niches and regimes that provide the actual conditions for implementing sociotechnical configurations.

Plug-in electric vehicles (PEV) can be a main lever towards a decarbonised road transport system. The PEV market uptake needs to be nurtured by appropriate support measures for users, for technological advances related to the vehicle and its components, and for all relevant recharging infrastructure deployment. This paper focuses on the role of PEV recharging infrastructure for electric passenger car uptake in Europe. It examines the status of road transport electrification, relevant policies, incentives and national plans. We find that the status and plans of PEV and recharging infrastructure and the corresponding support measures vary significantly between countries. The PEV share in the various analysed countries ranged in 2017 from 0.01% to 5.49% and is estimated to reach values between 0.05% and 12.71% in 2020. The corresponding ratio of PEV per one publicly accessible recharging point ranged between 1 and 60 and is estimated to vary between 3 and 161 in 2020. Diverging plans could lead to market fragmentation in the European Union (EU) and impede the EU-wide circulation of PEVs. The appropriate level of recharging infrastructure should be determined to both support PEV deployment and to prevent sunk investments. Different country experiences vis-à-vis PEV and infrastructure support could be useful to identify best practices.

Electrification is widely considered an attractive solution for reducing the oil dependency and environmental impact of road transportation. Many countries have been establishing increasingly stringent and ambitious targets in support of transport electrification. We conducted scenario simulations to depict the role of transport electrification in climate change mitigation and how the transport sector would interact with the energy-supply sector. The results showed that transport electrification without the replacement of fossil-fuel power plants leads to the unfortunate result of increasing emissions instead of achieving a low-carbon transition. While transport electrification alone would not contribute to climate change mitigation, it is interesting to note that switching to electrified road transport under the sustainable shared socioeconomic pathways permitted an optimistic outlook for a low-carbon transition, even in the absence of a decarbonized power sector. Another interesting finding was that the stringent penetration of electric vehicles can reduce the mitigation cost generated by the 2 °C climate stabilization target, implying a positive impact for transport policies on the economic system. With technological innovations such as electrified road transport, climate change mitigation does not have to occur at the expense of economic growth. Because a transport electrification policy closely interacts with energy and economic systems, transport planners, economists, and energy policymakers need to work together to propose policy schemes that consider a cross-sectoral balance for a green sustainable future. 電気自動車の完全普及によるCO2排出量削減の効果を解明 --パリ協定の気候目標達成には社会全体での取り組みが必須--. 京都大学プレスリリース. 2020-03-10.

Electric mobility seems to bring a paradigm shift in the road transport sector worldwide. Huge consumption of fossil fuels and ever-increasing traffic congestion have caused concerns over future energy consumption, economy growth, and greenhouse gas emissions in the Gulf Cooperation Council region’s member countries. The introduction of electric vehicles (EVs) in the two most populous countries of the region, i.e., the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and UAE is considered a promising option to address environmental pollution and future economy-related fears region. This paper presents key drivers for the countries to adopt electric transportation. This research study investigates the impact of EVs penetration on energy, economy, and environment of KSA and UAE through EV stockpile forecasting using linear regression analysis. The obtained results suggest that expected growth in KSA and UAE’s power sector will enable them to keep up 5% and 30% EVs penetration by 2030, respectively. In this regard, a set of policies are proposed, which will enable the countries to pace up their efforts to achieve the intended greenhouse gases (GHG) emission reduction goals. Though the presented research is focused on the case study of KSA and UAE, the research findings are generalized enough to be applied to all other regions of the region. The suggested set of policies will serve as guidelines for the relevant stakeholders about the necessary measures required for sustainable road transport electrification in KSA and UAE.

Traction inverter, as a critical component in electrified transportation, has been the subject of many research projects in terms of topologies, modulation, and control schemes. Recently, some of the well-known electric vehicle manufacturers have utilized higher-voltage batteries to benefit from lower current, higher power density, and faster charging times. With the ongoing trend toward higher DC-link voltage in electric vehicles, some multilevel structures have been investigated as a feasible and efficient option for replacing the two-level inverters. Higher efficiency, higher power density, better waveform quality, and inherent fault-tolerance are the foremost advantages of multilevel inverters which make them an attractive solution for this application. This paper presents an investigation of the advantages and disadvantages of higher DC-link voltage in traction inverters, as well as a review of the recent research on multilevel inverter topologies for electrified transportation applications. A comparison of multilevel inverters with their two-level counterpart is conducted in terms of efficiency, cost, power density, power quality, reliability, and fault tolerance. Additionally, a comprehensive comparison of different topologies of multilevel inverters is conducted based on the most important criteria in transportation electrification. Future trends and possible research areas are also discussed.