Techno-Economic Design Analysis of Electric Vehicle Charging Stations Powered by Photovoltaic Technology on the Highways of Saudi Arabia

The globalization of electric vehicle development and production is a significant goal. The availability of charging stations helps to encourage the global transition to electric vehicles, which may lead to a decrease in traditional fuel consumption. Nevertheless, the rise in the number of electric vehicles is accompanied by sustainability issues, such as managing the grid's electrical demand, building more charging stations, and providing electricity from renewable resources in an efficient and sustainable manner, especially in Saudi Arabia. This work focused on three challenges regarding the installation of fast charging stations (FCSs) for electric vehicles (EVs) on highways. The first challenge is choosing optimal locations on highways to address the range of anxiety of EV drivers. The second challenge is to fuel these FCSs using renewable resources, such as photovoltaic (PV) panels, to make FCSs sustainable. The last challenge is to design FCSs by considering both highway driving behavior and the available renewable energy resources in order to cover charging demand. All of these challenges should be considered while planning the EV charging infrastructure of Saudi highways from both technical and economic perspectives. Thus, using the HOMER (R) Grid software (version 1.10.1 June 2023), locations on Saudi Arabian highways were selected based on the renewable resources of several roads that support a large number of vehicles traveling on them. These roads were the Makkah to Riyadh, Makkah to Abha, Riyadh to Dammam, Riyadh to NEOM, and Jeddah to NEOM roads. Electric vehicle charging stations with a capacity of 200 kW, 300 kW, and 500 kW were designed on these roads based on their natural renewable resources, which is PV energy. These roads are the most important roads in the Kingdom and witness heavy traffic. An economic study of these stations was carried out in addition to considering their efficiency. This study revealed that the 500 kW station is ideal for charging electric vehicles, with an annual energy production of 3,212,000 kWh. The 300 kW station had better efficiency but higher capital expenses. The 200 kW station could charge 6100 vehicles annually. The three stations on the Makkah to Riyadh, Makkah to Abha, and Riyadh to Dammam roads can charge 65,758 vehicles annually. The total cost of the project was USD 2,786,621, with the 300 kW plant having the highest initial investment, which can be potentially justified due to its higher power output. This study provides a comprehensive overview of the project costs and the potential returns of using solar power plants for charging electric vehicles.