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A Conceptual Framework to Integrate Electric Vehicles Charging

Infrastructure into the Electric Grid

Article in International Journal of Smart Grid and Clean Energy · July 2017
DOI: 10.12720/sgce.6.3.207-218

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 International Journal of Smart Grid and Clean Energy

A conceptual framework to integrate electric vehicles

charging infrastructure into the electric grid
Vivian Sultan, Hind Bitar, Ahmed Alzahrani, Brian Hiltona*
Claremont Graduate University CISAT, 925 N Dartmouth Ave, Claremont 91711, United States

Abstract
The Electric Vehicle (EV) market is one of the most rapidly changing and fastest growing high-tech sectors in the
United States. The relatively small number of large-scale public vehicle-charging stations makes recharging electric
vehicles problematic, if not impossible at times. Decisions on making more charging stations are not as simple as
simply opening more stations. This study aims at addressing “How to properly integrate EV charging infrastructure
into the electricity system and deliver net benefits to the consumers?” To answer the research question, we have
searched the background literature, conducted semi-structured interviews to develop a conceptual framework for
decision-making that caters to EV owners/drivers, as well as to utilities. The utility and novelty of the solution is
important to emphasize as the driving factors for this project. By developing a conceptual framework for decision
making that previously didn’t exist, a great amount of time is reduced for both the developers who are interested in
finding the optimal locations and the utility companies who are interested in integrating the EV charging
infrastructure into the electricity system in ways that deliver net benefits to utility customers, shareholders, vehicle
owners, and society at large.

Keywords: Dispatchable grid resource, battery range, V2G technology

1. Introduction

The Electric Vehicle (EV) market is one of the most rapidly changing and fastest growing high-tech
sectors in the United States. According to some recent estimates from the United States Department of
Energy’s Clean Cities program [1], the U.S. has approximately 482,000 EVs, 14,000 public charging
stations, and 36,000 charging outlets. The U.S. market currently has over 20 electric vehicle models from
12 manufacturers. To increase the adoption and use of plug-in electric vehicles, President Obama
announced the “EV Everywhere Challenge” in 2012 as a part of the Energy Department’s Clean Energy
Grand Challenges. It aims “to make electric vehicles more affordable and convenient to own and drive
than today’s gasoline-powered vehicles within the next 10 years.” [2]. Similarly, a Bloomberg New
Energy Finance report [3] suggests that the sale of electric vehicles will hit almost 90 times the equivalent
figure for 2015 by 2040. The report also highlights that, by year 2022, electric vehicles will cost the same
as their gasoline-driven equivalents, the point from where the sale of EVs will takeoff. California’s target
is to have 1.5 million EVs on the road by 2025, which is more than 600% increase over the roughly
200,000 EVs it has today [4]. According to Trabish [5], EV sales have already outperformed
infrastructure growth, which is a problem that is expected to increase with the skyward trend of the EV
sales.
The relatively small number of large-scale public vehicle-charging stations makes recharging electric
vehicles problematic, if not impossible at times. Supporting California’s target to have 1.5 million EVs on
the road by 2025, a rapid expansion of charging infrastructure (between 150,000 and 750,000 non-home
charging stations) is needed [6]. Faster adoption of EVs will require flexibility in charging. Various

* Manuscript received March 2, 2017; revised June 12, 2017.

Corresponding author. Tel.: + (818) 419-4666; E-mail address: vivian.sultan@cgu.edu.
doi: 10.12720/sgce.6.3.207-218
208 International Journal of Smart Grid and Clean Energy, vol. 6, no. 3, July 2017

analyses suggest that more charging stations are necessary to accommodate consumer demand for
convenient electric vehicle recharging but the question is where these charging stations should be located.
Decisions on making more charging stations are not as simple as simply opening more stations. The
reason is that an electric charge depends on and impacts the overall electric grid in a region. Charging an
electric vehicle is, in some instances, the equivalent of adding three houses to the grid and the electric
grid is not ready for these stratospheric spikes in power demand [7]. Utilities need to keep a close eye on
the grid constraints as they plan EV charging stations infrastructure in order to avoid grid reliability
problems, power outages, and other unplanned costs that might occur due to peak demand influences and
the grid overload. According to SDG&E calculations, if California’s targets by 2025 (1.5 million EVs)
are all charged during peak times, it could add almost 10,000 MW of new peak load to the existing
64,000 MW load on California’s grid [6].
An additional point is that deploying networks of electric vehicle (EV) charging stations can stabilize
and bring benefit to the grid in locations where there is excess power. Looking at possible benefits and the
new electricity grid of the future, EV charging can absorb mid-day solar over-generation and alleviate
wind curtailment at night. Charging EVs when non-dispatchable assets like solar and wind generators are
producing more energy can help flatten out the duck curve of demand and reduce the extent to which
supply suddenly escalates. All of these characteristics reduce system costs, benefit ratepayers, and
improve the profitability of generators [6].
Considering the grid capacity constraints, implications of EV charging if it is not appropriately
incorporated into the electricity system, and the potential benefits of infrastructure planning, this paper
addresses the research question: “How to properly integrate EV charging infrastructure into the electricity
system and deliver net benefits to the consumers?” Previous literature showed insufficient attempts by
researchers to provide solutions that can assist in decision-making with respect to this research question.
The existing research was developed bearing in mind only the net benefits to EV owners while neglecting
the electric circuit capacity constraints and the impact of the EV charging infrastructure on the electric
grid. To date, there is no conceptual framework to identify the optimal locations for placing the EV
charging infrastructure considering the above aspects.
This research paper is based on the process steps in Takeda, et al.’s design cycle to create the
artifact/solution [8]. This cycle has five main steps, which are the awareness of the problem, suggestion,
development, evaluation, and conclusion. The awareness of the problem phase has been indicated as
mentioned above in the introduction and problem definition section. The suggestion phase is the decisions
that have been made to develop the conceptual framework to assist in the placement of electric vehicles
public charging stations. The research approach section, where the researchers indicated the steps to
develop and create the framework outlines the development phase. The evaluation phase is explained in
the evaluation section of the paper. The last phase is the future work and conclusion. The objective of this
research is to develop a conceptual framework for decision-making that caters to both EV owners and
grid operators.
This paper’s authors chose Takeda et al.’s design cycle [8] because it is an early adoption of using
design science research (DSR) as a research paradigm for Information Systems research projects as
outlined in the MISQ 2004 paper [9]. The authors used the three design science research cycles of
relevance, design, and rigor [10] to perform each of the Takeda, et al., process steps leading to the final
framework in this paper after two iterations.

2. Background Literature Review

The demand for EVs is rapidly increasing and there are many countries that support the use of EVs,
such as China and Germany [11]. In United States specifically, there is an enormous growth in using EVs
[11]. From 2010 to 2015, the growth of EV sales increased by 40% in the United States, as shown in Fig.
1.
 Vivian Sultan et al.: A conceptual framework to integrate electric vehicles charging infrastructure into the electric grid…… 209

Fig. 1. The EV increased use [11].

The price of EVs is reasonable and they are considered as a second option for a personal vehicle [12].
Based on the argument of Roberts [12], EV charging stations are sufficient: “EV can already cover most
trips for most people.” Evidently, the current EV stations cover 87% of current trip for the 2013 Nissan
Leaf [12]. With the improvement of the battery technology, the trip range will increase, the cost will go
down, and the coverage will be much higher. As a result, the demand for EVs will surge.
However, as the demand for the EV rises, the supply of charging stations remains the same. Hence,
there will be a shortage of EV stations where customers can recharge the car battery. The infrastructure of
EV is currently poor and utility companies need to enhance and support this technology. Based on current
data, the ratio of charging stations to EV cars is 1:35, which means that each station should serve 35 EVs
on average. With the rapid increase of EVs on the road, additional charging stations are needed. Moreover,
Trabish [5] explained the high demand for EV public charging station adoption. The article mentioned
different utility companies nationwide and their positions in adopting EV charging stations as shown in
Table 1.

Table 1. Utility companies pilot programs

Utilities Companies EV Charging Stations

Southern California Edison Approved to build 1500 charging stations with cost around $22 million

Program of Power in drive

San Diego Gas and Electric
In final approval phase with cost around $45 million

Pacific Gas and Electric Proposed to install 7500 EV charger over 3 years with cost of $160 million

The Los Angeles Department of Program of Charge Up LA that seeks to expand EV charging infrastructure for home
Water and Power and workplace

The New England utility Began working with the State of Connecticut on the pilot Plug My Ride rate plan

The Hawaiian Electric Company Approved to install, own, and operate up to 25 EV fast charger

The State of Washington (Avista

Washington state currently has 1,544 public charging outlets. Had over 16,000 EVs
Utilities)
210 International Journal of Smart Grid and Clean Energy, vol. 6, no. 3, July 2017

The US utilities have launched pilot programs recently as shown in Table 1. There are still concerns
regarding whether utilities companies should implement charging stations or wait for EV adoption to
spike. Trabish [5] articulates that “Providing access to charging will continue to be a challenge as EV
adoption grows because rising demand has to be balanced by deliberateness in finding the right sites and
in using ratepayer capital.” Pilot programs are needed between state agencies, automakers, EV charging
manufacturers, installers, utilities and other stakeholders. Also, there is a need for smart technologies and
infrastructure planning to proactively increase utilities’ grid flexibility, to reduce infrastructure costs, and
to provide the charging services for EV drivers.
For example, the New England Utility began working with the State of Connecticut on a pilot program
named Plug My Ride. Similarly, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power has a program of
Charge Up LA that seeks to expand EV charging infrastructure for homes and workplaces. Also, Southern
California Edison was approved to build 1,500 charging stations with a cost of $22 million. In San Diego
Gas and Electric, a program named Program of Power in Drive is in its final approval phase with an
estimated cost of $45 million. As reported by Anne C. Mulkern [13], the Pacific Gas and Electric plans to
install 7,600 EV Charging Stations (CSs). The proposal includes partnerships with charging companies to
maintain and build the infrastructure with a total cost of $160 million.
According to Anne C. Mulkern, the California Public Utilities Commission needed to sign the
approval on the plan [13]. Although there were concerns about the size and the cost of the project,
Mulkern added that the proposal had gained support from environmental organizations, automakers, and
labor unions. The Pacific Gas and Electric is trying to encourage people to buy EVs through the
development of charging infrastructure at workplaces, multifamily housing, including apartment
buildings, and disadvantaged neighborhoods. Moreover, Mulkern explained that excess renewable energy
supply from wind or solar generation is an issue that can be overcome if a utility offers incentives for
drivers to charge at times when there is excess power. These pilot programs showed the serious intention
of the utility companies to meet the high demand of EV charging stations in the future.
There are many studies in the literature that have tried to identify the optimal location of CSs. In 2012,
Hess et al. identified mobility modeling and charging station deployment as two of the most critical tasks
for the widespread adoption of electric vehicles [14]. They gave a solution for optimal placement of
charging stations in a smart city where multiple information, technologies and Internet of Things
solutions are integrated. Their placement approach was based on genetic programming and simulation of
electric vehicles that move on a real map where streets’ topologies including all the details about street
type, number of lanes, speed limitations, etc. are replicated in a proportionally accurate size. The authors
argued that an optimal solution for placing the charging infrastructure is based on mean trip times of
electric vehicles. Additionally, Momtazpour et al. [15] proposed another approach to determine the
location of EV charging stations. This approach is urban computing with clustering. Urban computing is a
method that uses computational science to “foster human life in urban environments” [15]. The key
elements that the researchers used in location determination of EV charging stations are places where
people visit for an extended period of time. Hence, it is helpful in location identification to consider
factors such as the number of times and the duration that EV owners need to charge an EV in a specific
location. Furthermore, Saelee and Horanont [16] conducted an analysis study that suggests areas of CSs
in Thailand. The authors selected the optimal placement of CSs based on the volume of road traffic and
battery life. The authors’ main assumption was that the EV owner starts to use the car fully charged. The
researchers used QGIS software tools for map illustration.
Recent literature on smart grid systems is starting to pay attention to the integration of EVs into the
electricity system and the impact on the grid. Kamboj et al., [17] foresaw EV owners to be consumers
when they recharge their batteries through the grid. According to the authors, EVs can be used as a large
distributed battery system and can provide power storage and additional services to the electric grid when
they are not being driven. A 2016 study by the Electricity Innovation Lab suggests that the growing
number of electric vehicle batteries offer a broad variety of valued grid services, “from demand response
and voltage regulation to distribution-level services, without compromising driving experience or
 Vivian Sultan et al.: A conceptual framework to integrate electric vehicles charging infrastructure into the electric grid…… 211

capability” [4]. The study also estimates a requirement of about 1,000-terawatt hour of additional
electricity per year, or an increase of about one-quarter of our current electricity demand if all passenger
cars in the U.S. were replaced with EVs. This increase in electricity demand is high enough to overload
the grid and cause enormous problems.
The literature, also, confirms that EV charging can be integrated into the electricity system in ways
that deliver net benefits to utility customers, shareholders, vehicle owners, and society. According to
Nelder et al. [4], EV infrastructure planning can provide many benefits such as: reducing new investment
in grid infrastructure, optimizing existing grid assets, prolonging their lifespans, allowing greater
integration of various renewables, eliminating the need for new natural-gas generation for dispatchable
capacity while reducing the curtailment of renewable production, lowering electricity and transportation
costs, and increasing energy security. The authors concluded that utilities involvement in the build-out of
electric vehicle charging infrastructure is in the public interest. Utilities can serve as facilitators, managers,
and providers of EV charging stations.
Our review of the literature and numerous pilot projects, as well as some original modeling of state
level load profiles, confirms that EV charging can be integrated into the electricity system in ways that
deliver net benefits to utility customers, shareholders, vehicle owners, and society at large. A good
starting point, however, is to view EV charging as a distributed energy resource that can create value for
the grid. EV charging demand can be managed geographically to minimize potential increases to overall
electric system costs while still meeting customers’ needs.

Table 2. EVs charging levels

Max Capacity Time to charge an EV with a 60- Miles Range Added per
Type Voltage (V)
(KW) 80 miles range hour

Level 1 120 2 14-22 hours to full charge 2-5

Level 2 240 4 4-7 hours to full charge 10-20

30 minutes to 80% charge at

Level 3 480 20-90 60-80 at 20 kW
20kW

3. Theory and Research Approach

According to Hevner, et al., there are three important cycles in the design science research, which are
relevance, design, and rigor cycles, as it shown in Fig. 2 [10]. The authors followed and used these cycles
to develop the framework by searching on the background literature and interviewing five participants
who drive EVs and are employed by a major utility company in Southern California. Moreover, applying
the location theory, developing and evaluating the artifact (the conceptual framework) were further steps
taken by the researchers to assist developers in decision-making.
According to Durlauf & Blume [18], location theory addresses questions of what economic activities
such as EV charging stations should be located where and why. This theory is rooted in microeconomics,
which studies the behavior of individual and firms in making decisions regarding the allocation of limited
resources. Firms such as developers of EV charging stations/utility companies should choose locations
that increase their profits and maximize the benefits to the grid. As for the EV drivers/owners, they should
choose locations that maximize their utility (obtain the highest possible level of satisfaction) according to
the theory.
212 International Journal of Smart Grid and Clean Energy, vol. 6, no. 3, July 2017

Fig. 2. Information systems research framework [10].

In this study, as it is shown in Fig. 3, we have chosen the location theory since it considers both the
firms’ (developers/utilities) perspective and the users’ (EV owners/ drivers) perspective and this matches
our research goal. Answering what and where guided mainly by the users requirements was another
reason for using the location theory. We have classified the site selection factors and structured the
process of the EV public charging stations site selection. Location theory’s main objective is to explain
why specific economic activities prefer to establish themselves in particular areas and locations by
allocates with what (EVs public charging stations) and where (area, location, or regions).

Fig. 3. EVs public charging stations location decision guided by location theory.
 Vivian Sultan et al.: A conceptual framework to integrate electric vehicles charging infrastructure into the electric grid…… 213

4. Artifact: Conceptual Framework

The researchers used both the background literature and semi-structured interview as research methods
to develop the conceptual framework for decision-making that caters to EV owners/drivers, as well as to
utilities for it considers the impacts of the charging infrastructure placement on the grid, and the electric
circuit capacity constraints as is shown in Fig. 4.

Fig. 4. Conceptual framework for placement of EV public charging stations.

Table 3. EV driver and utility’s factors from literature review

Level 2 Weight Level 3

Factor Definition (Low, Mid, Weight (Low, Technical Specs. Reference
High) Mid, High)

User Dimension - EV driver

Level 2: Destination
Anything that saves or location such as work Walton [12], and
simplifies work, adds to and/or home Plumer [11].
Convenience one's ease or comfort, High High Level 3: Near freeway,
which is short distance close to attractions, major
and comfortable place to parks, shopping centers, Supported by
spend time big retail stores, interviews
restaurants, gym.
The maximum and the Level 2: short distance
minimum distance that (0.5 mile maximum walk)
Accessibility EV owners are willing to Medium High to destination Kandukuri [20]
walk to and from the Level 3: short distance
charging station (0.25 mile maximum
walk) to destination
214 International Journal of Smart Grid and Clean Energy, vol. 6, no. 3, July 2017

The time that EV users

spend to arrive to the Travel Time Index (the
charging station, which ratio of the peak period
Travel Time is based on the average Medium High travel time as compared to
traffic congestion (if the free-flow travel time) Xiong et al. [20]
there are many ways to
arrive to the final
destination) and distance
[19].
United States DOT
Battery Range Federal Highway
Miles that EVs can run Medium High Maximum 50 Miles
Administration [21]
without recharge
Supported by
interviews

Security Safety assessment based High Medium Crime index Kandukuri [20]
crime rate

User Dimension - Utility

Exploiting Excess A renewable energy Statistically significant Woody [22] and

Power approach that aims at areas using kernel density Nelder et al. [4].
exploiting excess power Medium High estimation (KDE) where
by charging at locations Supported by
(Vehicle to Grid there is high potential interviews
where there is potential
Technology) excess solar and/or wind solar and/or wind
generation generation

The 2016 Electricity

Innovation lab
Load capacity of electric estimates, Nelder et
A minimum requirement al. [4] and Pedro
circuits determined by
Grid Capacity the maximum load a Medium High of 12 kilovolts modern Pizarro, CEO of
circuit can handle safely circuit Southern California
without overheating Edison from Julia
paper [23].
Supported by
interviews

Total count of vehicles

that can be plugged into
an electric power source Statistically significant
Number of EV in the to charge the battery, areas with large number Momtazpour, et al.
High Medium [15].
area which is the sum of of EVs (hotspot using the
Supported by
battery electric vehicles Getis-Ord Gi* statistic) interviews
(BEVs) and Plug-In
Hybrid electric vehicles
(PHEVs)

Our framework has two main dimensions; the first one is the user dimension, which has two main
values: (1) EVs drivers and (2) utility. The second dimension is the factors that help in decision-making
for the optimal location of EVs charging stations. First, we searched in the literature and the literature
evaluation produced five factors that will assist in determining the optimal location for EV drivers. Then,
we considered three more factors that will aid in decision-making for utilities. All eight factors were
developed from the background as is shown in Table 3.
Columns’ values for Level II Weight (Low, Mid, High), Level III Weight (Low, Mid, High), and
Technical Specs. were determined based on the researchers’ understanding of the phenomenon, its factors,
 Vivian Sultan et al.: A conceptual framework to integrate electric vehicles charging infrastructure into the electric grid…… 215

and the customers’ requirements. Five participants, who are currently being employed by a major utility
company in Southern California, were interviewed thus provided good insights from the industry
perspective. The participants were selected using a purposeful sampling technique, where participants
with experience driving/owing EVs were selected. The interviews ranged from 30 minutes to an hour.
The profile of the sample is shown in Table 4. The data collection technique used was a semi-structured
interview. More questions were developed based on the conversation between the interviewer and the
intervieweea.
Table 3. Sample characteristics

Interviewee’s Position Vehicle Type, Battery Range & Year of Make Gender

Participant 1 - Manager Tesla Model S, 210 miles range, 2016 Female

Participant 2 - Director Tesla Model S, 265 miles range, 2014 Male

Participant 3 – Vice President Chevy Volt, 40 miles range, 2012 Male

Participant 4 – Project Manager Tesla Model S, 265 miles range, 2014 Male

Participant 5 – Project Manager Hyundai Sonata, 27 miles range, 2016 Female

According to participant 1 who is a manager currently involved in a project for EV charging, “There is
no collective strategy for placement of EV charging stations. Whichever corporation decides to invest in
building public charging stations can do that in non-coordinated ways. Public charging stations are
currently being built on an ad hoc base; there are no holistic strategies or coordinated efforts to build the
public charging infrastructure.” The researchers analyzed the interviewees’ answers and generated five
factors that were also supported by the literature review to influence the decision-making with respect to
the placement of electric vehicles charging stations as shown in Table 5.
Table 4. Factors supported by interviews

Factor Quote Example

Dimension of EV driver

“I can charge it at a hotel overnight if I am spending the night at a hotel”

“I would rather see level 3 stations at the malls or shopping centers,” to support level 2 charging
station “though it makes sense for some people to spend 4+ hours at the mall”
Convenience
“It is important to have more visibility of EV charging stations to overcome the perception of
shortage…. “
“Variety of locations: at home, workplaces, malls, and next to freeway…”
“...such as shopping malls, Costco, and the gym”

a
To get the tabular summary of the interviews, contact the first author at vivian.sultan@cgu.edu
216 International Journal of Smart Grid and Clean Energy, vol. 6, no. 3, July 2017

“I have a range greater than 100 miles, my daily use doesn’t exceed 100 miles”
Battery Range
“My daily commute is about 60 miles per day”

Dimension of Utility

“.. so more public charging stations will be needed during the day to take advantage of the excess solar
power and the cheaper price of electricity…”
“Now the cheapest time to charge your vehicle is in the middle of the night but with the additional
solar power, things might change…”
Vehicle-to-grid
“…Utility companies need sales growth from electrification of vehicles to offset the reduction of
(V2G) electricity consumption that will result from potential solar generation. In other words, electrification
technology/
of vehicles will help in keeping electricity rate from increasing so that customers are happy. Another
point is that the electrification of vehicles can help the state in meeting its aggressive Greenhouse Gas
Exploiting Excess (GHG) goals…”
Power
“…I will not want to risk the degradation of my car battery by using it as a vehicle to grid (V2G) to
provide demand response services to the grid…”
“…using the EV battery as a dispatchable distributed energy resource (DER) could be interesting and
beneficial but my decision will depend on how much I will get paid.”

“From a utility perspective, our role is to prepare the infrastructure and to create value from building
Grid Capacity charging stations…”
“…There will be a time when workplace charging might be cheaper than charging at home…”

“…You definitely need to prioritize (based on number of EVs in the area). However, in order for EV
to go mainstream, you need to have public charging stations in disadvantaged neighbourhoods as well.
Number of EVs in You won’t have product mainstream unless all people can afford it. So if you compare an EV with a
the area
product that went mainstream such as the cell phone, all people (rich as well as those who live in
disadvantaged neighbourhoods) have it.”

5. Evaluation

The project team applied a qualitative interview method to evaluate the prototype using socio-technical
technique to assess the following metrics: propriety and utility. The researchers evaluated the different
values held by the different stakeholders by sending the following five interview questions via email: (1)
how useful is the conceptual framework (Fig. 4.) in your view? (2) Is the framework complete from your
perspective? (3) Do you agree with the factors’ definitions in table 3? (4) Do you agree with the factors’
technical specifications in table 3? (5) What changes would you recommend for improvement? In this
case, both EV drivers’ and utility executives’ perspectives were part of the evaluation process to ensure
that their unique stances were understood.
Feedback was solicited from participants who were previously involved in the awareness of the
problem phase and gathering the requirements. Two participants responded with positive feedback and
they highlighted the potential offered by the proposed artifact. According to Jim Horstman, a utility
industry consultant, the conceptual framework is useful and he agreed with the factors’ definitions.
However, Horstman pointed out that there is an overlap of some factors such as the Accessibility,
Convenience and Travel Time. Horstman suggested that all three factors could be considered under
Convenience.
As for the feedback from the second participant, who is a director with a utility company, he advised
to have charging time as a separate characteristic in the conceptual framework. He noted that not all
vehicles can accept charging from Level 2 and Level 3 chargers and this characteristic might be linked to
the number of vehicles in the area. He generally agreed with the factors’ definitions, with the exception of
convenience. According to the utility director, “there is great potential in the research direction because it
will help solve a pressing problem facing electric utilities, particularly electric utilities that will have
substantial distributed energy resources (DERs) on their systems.”
 Vivian Sultan et al.: A conceptual framework to integrate electric vehicles charging infrastructure into the electric grid…… 217

6. Limitations and Future Work

The artifacts proposed in this paper used literature review and interviewees’ feedback to develop a
solution that caters to both EV owners and grid operators. The suggested framework aimed at providing a
solution for decision-making to place the EV charging stations in locations that consider net benefits to
EV drivers/owners and the potential benefits to the grid. This could potentially save time and resources
for developers and utility companies who are interested in the identification of optimal locations for the
placement of EV public charging stations.
Another limitation is in the evaluation phase. It is important to recognize that the time constraint
imposed limitations on the evaluation and what these limitations are. The researchers don’t have an
opportunity to perform further iterations to improve the framework. The project team was able to
interview two participants since the beginning (problem identification). However, they need to get and
address the interviewees’ suggestions to complete the research.
The utility and novelty of the solution is important to emphasize as the driving factors for this project.
By developing a conceptual framework for decision making that previously didn’t exist, a great amount
of time is reduced for both the developers who are interested in finding the optimal locations and the
utility companies who are interested in integrating the EV charging infrastructure into the electricity
system in ways that deliver net benefits to utility customers, shareholders, vehicle owners, and society at
large.
In future DSR cycles, the project team will address all of the suggestions from interviewees. The
project team will develop a Geographic Decision Support Systems (GDSS) prototype to provide an
instance of or concrete evidence in support of the conceptual framework. A GDSS prototype is a good
starting point to illustrate how EV charging demand can be managed geographically to minimize potential
increases to overall electric system costs while still meeting customers’ needs. The prototype will run on
a public server to give the research participants access to the application.
According to participant 4, “Something to look at is how Tesla put chargers as they put them in the
right place, near freeways, exactly where I would stop. The non-Tesla charging stations are kind of hard
to find.” As part of future work, the project team will further research the location characteristics of Tesla
super chargers and ensure that these characteristics are incorporated into the conceptual framework. Also,
multiple tools can be developed for the purpose of building an interactive, computer-based system where
developers/utilities are allowed to configure their own criteria for decision-making.

7. Conclusion

This study aimed at addressing “How to properly integrate EV charging infrastructure into the
electricity system and deliver net benefits to the consumers?” To answer the research question, we have
searched the background literature, conducted semi-structured interviews to develop a conceptual
framework for decision-making that caters to EV owners/drivers, as well as to utilities. The framework
we offer in this paper is the first, to date, to address the research question. Our proposal was developed
bearing in mind not only the net benefits to EV owners but also the electric circuit capacity constraints
and the impact of the EV charging infrastructure on the electric grid.
From this research, we conclude that EV charging demand can be managed geographically to
minimize potential increases to overall electric system costs while still meeting customers’ needs. If
additional funds and data are made available, a custom GDSS solution can be developed to allow EV
charging developers to configure their own criteria for decision-making.

References

[1] United States Department of Energy’s Clean Cities program. (2015). Alternative Fuels Data Center: electric vehicle charging
station locations. [Online]. Available: http://www.afdc.energy.gov/fuels/electricity_locations.html
[2] United States Department of Energy. (2012). President Obama launches EV-everywhere challenge as part of energy
 218 International Journal of Smart Grid and Clean Energy, vol. 6, no. 3, July 2017

department’s clean energy grand challenges. [Online]. Available: http://energy.gov/articles/president-obama-launches-ev-

everywhere-challenge-part-energy- department-s-clean-energy
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