Numerical Analysis of National Travel Data to Assess the Impact of UK Fleet Electrification

TL;DR

This paper develops a method to generate electricity demand profiles for UK electric vehicles using survey data, aiding in planning and policy development for fleet electrification.

Contribution

It introduces a model that maps vehicle and journey parameters to energy consumption, enabling realistic demand prediction for an entire electric vehicle fleet.

Findings

Predicted electricity demand for a fully electric UK fleet.

Assessed effectiveness of different charging strategies.

Provided data-driven inputs for national planning.

Abstract

Accurately predicting the future power demand of electric vehicles is important for developing policy and industrial strategy. Here we propose a method to create a representative set of electricity demand profiles using survey data from conventional vehicles. This is achieved by developing a model which maps journey and vehicle parameters to an energy consumption, and applying it individually to the entire data set. As a case study the National Travel Survey was used to create a set of profiles representing an entirely electric UK fleet of vehicles. This allowed prediction of the required electricity demand and sizing of the necessary vehicle batteries. Also, by inferring location information from the data, the effectiveness of various charging strategies was assessed. These results will be useful in both National planning, and as the inputs to further research on the impact of electric vehicles.