Charging Strategies for Commercially Used Electric Vehicles : A multi-criteria analysis

Nowadays, green energy policies are not only demanded from larger companies by local governments, but also by environmentally aware customers. Alternative drive concepts, fueled by green energy sources, are perceived as an important contribution in terms of emission reductions. Assuming that price levels for conventional fuels will continue to increase in the near future, electric vehicles become an increasingly reasonable option for large-scale, commercial users, who focus on minimizing their operating costs and emissions at the same time. This study assesses different existing possibilities of installing and charging a commercially used fleet of electric vehicles. Therefore, a fleet of thirty light transport vehicles, set up for a field trial by a large logistics company, serves as a basis for a case study. The author first defines a multi-criteria decision problem, gathers and processes the necessary data and solves the decision problem for different preferance scenarios. The study also addresses the impact of a future increase of green energy on the outcome of the decision problem.