Planning for Charging: A Review of Technologies, Criteria and Methods

Nowadays, the increase in the capacity of batteries has laid the foundations for a broader diffusion of electric mobility. However, electric mobility is causing a growing electricity demand as well as the need to increase the diffusion of suitable charging stations. Within these last challenges, drawing on the recent literature, this chapter provides a critical and wide-ranging review of papers dealing with the formulation of the problem of the localisation of electric vehicle (EV) charging points. This problem is approached considering the electric charging infrastructure technologies, localisation criteria and related methodologies. This review shows how the ‘electric mobility revolution’ applies the technological innovations provided by the energy supply systems, and the location of these systems within the urban contexts. Since the technological innovations have different options, achieving an international standard of charging systems is still far away. Moreover, as there are several criteria, parameters and methodologies, and some analytical approaches for the localisation of electric vehicle charging points, the formulation of the ‘localisation’ problem should require the application of multi-criteria analysis to be addressed. Finally, the results show that there is no consensus on technologies, criteria, and methodologies to be adopted. Therefore, this wide-ranging analysis of the literature would be useful to support possible benchmarking and systematisation accordingly.