Long-term profit for electric vehicle charging stations: A stochastic optimization approach

Electric vehicles are gradually finding their position as an alternative to fossil fuel vehicles. To accelerate the replacement process, a number of new infrastructural facilities such as charging stations (CS) have to be widely deployed. In order to encourage the private sector to invest in this area, it is necessary to introduce a combination of business and technical model for CS that comprises management tools for guaranteeing their long-term profit. Given that the price of electricity and the number of vehicles drive to the CS are random variables, the proposed model should consider all these uncertainties. In this paper, the desired model is introduced by utilizing stochastic optimization framework. Long-term Durable Profit for Charging Station (DPCS) algorithm is proposed to maximize the long-term profit of CS owner. By means of the DPCS algorithm, CS owner can decide on the electricity sales price, vehicle entrance and number of working pumps at each time interval. Simulation results show that the CS owner would have an increase of 107% in profit at a cost of incurring 80% more delay to vehicles. If a parking barrier is used in the CS, the achievable profit would be increased by 12% and the waiting delay of vehicles would be decreased by 25%. (C) 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.