Optimal Siting and Sizing of Electric Vehicle

Charging Stations
Long JIA, Student Member, IEEE, Zechun HU, Member, IEEE, Yonghua SONG, Fellow, IEEE
and Zhuowei Luo, Student Member, IEEE

Abstract—The development of electric vehicles cannot be BN mn Matrix of road network structure.
separated from charging infrastructures. At present, the
construction of electric vehicle charging stations faces the BI mq Matrix of road network information.
problems on siting and sizing. This paper introduces the
optimization process of the sizing and siting of electric vehicle n Number of nodes in the area.
charging stations, defines variables to represent the charging m Number of main roads in the area
demand; abstracts the structure of road network to model and ch
c Cost of one charger
simulate with graph theory; solves the problem with Cplex. The tf
objective of the model is to minimize the integrated cost of c Cost of one transformer with unit capacity.
charging stations and consumers. The calculation results, using ch
P0 Power rating of one charger.
the data of Stockholm, Sweden, show that the method can
cs
effectively reduce the construction and operation costs, and cf i Fixed cost of charging station i.
facilitate user charging.
tp
c Cost of consumers with unit distance and unit
Keywords-electric vehicle (EV); charging station; optimal vehicle-hour.
planning; siting and sizing; integrated cost M One enough high real number.
ch
N min Minimum of chargers within one charging station.
NOMENCLATURE
ch
cs N max Maximum of chargers within one charging station
yi 0-1 variables, when a station is built on site i,
cs
cs cs
yi =1 , otherwise, yi =0 . N min Minimum number of charging stations allowed.
cs
y
cs
Column vector of decision variables: build a station N max Maximum number of charging stations allowed.
or not. ch
Operating factor of chargers.
ch
k
Ni The number of chargers in station i. t
k Proportion of charging time within one day.
ch
N Column vector of decision variables: number of ev
chargers.  Average daily charging probability.
N
cs
Number of charging stations.  Capital recovery factor.
i Lending rates.
Dj Vehicle-hour at node j. s Plan operational life of charging stations.
tp
Dij Vehicle-hour transported from node j to charging I. INTRODUCTION
station i.
D
tp
Matrix of vehicle-hour transported from node to
charging stations.
I n the 21st century, we are facing with the dual challenge of
energy and environmental issues in the frame of sustainable
transport development [1]. Electric vehicle (EV), as a clean and
tp
lij Length of the shortest path from node j to charging efficient eco-friendly new energy vehicle, has become the
station i.
focus of attention [2]. The improvement of electric vehicle
li Distance from charging station i to the head end of charging facilities’ network construction, convenience for users,
the road. the cost of user charging and EV station construction, will
tp
l Matrix of the shortest path from node to charging directly affect the adoption of EVs, which will determine the
stations. scale of electric vehicle development and application.
l Column vector of decision variables: distance from Therefore, the study on optimal planning of EV charging
charging stations to the head end of the road. stations is of great importance.
D, D j Set of vehicle-hours at different nodes, vehicle-hour In recent years, some papers have been published in the
at node j. field of electric vehicle charging facilities, but many of them
r , ri Set of length of different roads, length of road i. remain on the level of principles proposal or theoretical
analysis. Reference [3] suggested a few key issues to be

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resolved in the large-scale operation, and proposed a
preliminary solution based on the status quo of charging station
planning. Reference [4] established an optimal cost model for
the set of EVs charging stations. The model simulated the
number of EVs using the distribution of residents load, gave
the weight coefficients of the candidate sites with the analytic
hierarchy process. Under constraints of the distance from
candidate station site and substation, installation costs of EV
charging stations and the number of EVs, the model added in
the objective function the operation costs of the charging
stations, network losses and investment of distribution
transformers, and used particle swarm optimization algorithm
to optimize a hypothetical example. However, this method was
over-qualitative in calculating the weight coefficients of the
candidate sites, and did not take into account the effect of
actual traffic factors on the behavior of user charging.
Reference [5] introduced a multi-objective extendable model
on EVs charging stations distribution, taking into account the
sustainable development of electric vehicles, charging station’s
features, the user's behavior, the distribution of charging
demand, municipal planning and other factors, and designed
algorithm process based on the principle of priority needs and
re-use of existing gas stations.
This paper takes many factors into consideration including
charging demand, user behavior patterns, road network
structure, costs of charging station construction and operation,
charging costs of users and other factors; defines mathematical
expressing method of charging demand; builds model to
optimize the number, location and capacity of EV charging
stations to minimize the overall investment cost . The proposed
formulation is solved by Cplex. Simulations are carried out
using the data of Stockholm, Sweden. Results are analyzed
discussed.
II. RESEARCH METHODS OF LAYOUT OPTIMIZATION OF EV
CHARGING STATIONS
A. Process Design
Fig 1. Process of layout optimization of electric vehicle charging stations
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Study on the optimal planning of EV charging stations is
intended to obtain an effective construction plan to solve the
siting and sizing problem of charging stations within a region.
This proposed process is illustrated in Fig 1.
B. Charging Demand
Quantitative expression of the EV charging demand is the
key problem to study the optimal planning of the charging
stations. A variable “Vehicle-hour” is defined to represent the
charging demand. Vehicle-hour is the product of the number of
vehicles and the corresponding stay time at one place, with unit
" v  h " (abbreviation of Vehicle-hour). The basic assumption is
that the larger the Vehicle-hour is, the greater the charging
demand is. Charging electric vehicles can be equivalently
understood as the "transportation" of Vehicle-hour to the
charging station. This balance of "transportation" forms the
balance of capacity of charging stations. The computing
formula is shown as (1).
D  N  t , unit : v  h (1)
Vehicle-hour can be calculated statistically. The Vehicle-
hour at a certain location and within a certain period means the
cumulative Vehicle-hour at this location within this period. For
a certain Vehicle-hour value, it’s possible that vehicle flow in
traffic is large with short average stop time, or less vehicle flow
with long stop time. These two situations should be considered
simultaneously. In addition, vehicle-hour doesn’t mean one
specific vehicle must be able to charge or charging at the
moment and it’s a statistical variable for a large number of
electric vehicles.
C. Building transportation network model
For the road network within a region, road network nodes
are the vertices in the graph; roads are the sides in the graph,
weighted by road length, road capacity and other parameters.
The charging demand for electric vehicle at each node is the
vertex parameters.
Define branch-node matrix BN mn to indicate the
connections of road network, in which the row shows the
branch number and the column shows the node number.
Elements of the matrix BN mn are assigned according to
equation (2). Other elements are assigned zero.
 BN ( j ,i )1, if the branch j starts from node i (2)

 BN ( j ,i ) 1, if the branch j ends at node i
Define branch-information matrix BI mq to indicate the
information of each branch, including the road length, road
capacity, fixed cost of charging stations on the road, etc. The
row shows the branch number and the column shows the
information number.
 This paper calculates the shortest path from the vehicle
location to the charging station with Floyd shortest path 0  li  ri (7)
algorithm. 2) Constraints of charging demand
The basic condition for the construction of charging station
III. FORMULATION FOR OPTIMAL SITING AND SIZING OF EV is that the capacity should be able to meet all the needs of the
CHARGING STATIONS users. As the demand of charge is represented by the variable
Vehicle-hour, the services provided by electric vehicle
A. Problem description charging stations is measured by the number of charging
In this study, the charging stations are built within the road machines and the available time. The maximum available time
network. EV users choose the shortest way from the nodes of of each charger in one day is 24 hours. But taking into account
road network to any charging stations. the charging machine utilization rate, it is necessary to multiply
this available time by a factor less than 1.
B. Variables definition
If the needs of each charging station are met, then the global
The variables include four categories: 0-1 variables, integer demand will be met, as equation (8) shows, where the
variables, continuous variables and variables’ parameters. The
utilization of the charger is k ch  1 .
definition of all the variables can be found in nomenclature part
at the beginning of the paper. n
tp ch ch
 Dij  24 k N i  0 (8)
j 1
C. Objective function The sum of the charging demand on each node should be
The objective function is to minimize the integrated cost of equal to the sum of charging capacity of each charging station,
investment and operation, as shown in equation (3). ev t
as given in equation (9), where  k D j refers to the actual
ch cs tp inv ch cs oper tp
min C ( N , y , l , D )  c (N , y )  c (l , D ) (3) vehicles and time that can be charged in one day.
m
tp ev t
where, c inv ( N ch , y cs ) stands for the cost of investment of  Dij   k D j (9)
i 1
EV charging stations, and consists of fixed cost and scale-
3) Logical constraints
related cost; c oper (l , D tp ) stands for the cost of charging ch
There are logical constraints between the two variables N i
station operation and EV users’ cost to access the charging cs ch cs ch
facility, which is related to the Vehicle-hour and distance and yi . If N i  0 , then yi  0 ; and if N i  0 , then
between nodes and charging stations. These two costs are cs
yi  1 . The constraints can be described as follows in (10),
shown by the following equations:
where M is a sufficiently large real number.
inv ch cs
c (N , y )  N ich  M  yics  0
m  m   cs ch
(10)
 (c
ch tf ch
 c P0 ) N i  
ch cs cs
yi c f (4)  yi  N i  0
i
i 1 365 i 1 365
4) General constraints
m n The constraint of the amount of EV charging stations is
oper tp tp tp tp
c (l , D )    c Dij lij (5) shown in (11):
i 1 j 1
m
cs
N min   yi  N max
cs (11)
The cost of investment c inv ( N ch , y cs ) is a linear function of
i 1
decision variable y cs and number of chargers N ch , which is The capacity of each charging station also has a certain
upper and lower bound. For this model, the invested capacity is
converted from a year to a day with asset recovery factor  :
s
based on the number of chargers in a charging station. For
i (1  i ) capacity of all the charging stations on the road, they should
  ( A / P, i, s )  s
(6)
(1  i )  1 meet the following two constraints:

D. Constraints Situation 1: When a candidate charging station is selected,

the number of the chargers meets the upper and lower
1) Constraints of Road network structure constraints (12):
This paper assumes that at most one charging station can be ch ch ch
built on one close part of a road and the station must be built N min  N i  N max (12)
within the range of the road. The distance between station i and Situation 2: When a candidate charging station is not
node j should be under constraint as follows: selected, the number of chargers is zero.

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 To this kind of variables, Cplex can solve the problem According to the number of EVs and regional features, we
conveniently with variable S in parameter “Ctype”. can assume the distribution of electric vehicles and the
Vehicle-hour at nodes within the region. Considering almost all
IV. CASE STUDIES night charges are accomplished in slow-charging piles or slow-
charging stations, this paper rules out the 6 hours from 24:00 -
A. Problem description
05:00 in the vehicle distribution data and optimize only with
The data of Stockholm, Sweden is used as an example to the behavior of EVs between 06:00 ~ 23:00. The objective
test the above mentioned method. The data of Stockholm city function is to minimize the integrated cost of investment and
in 2007 is shown in Table I. operation, as shown in (2). This study targeted for the charging
TABLE I. DATA OF STOCKHOLM stations to be built within the road network. Users choose the
Items Data shortest way from the nodes of road network to any charging
Size (square km) 215.92 stations.
Population 795163
Number of private vehicles 296207 B. Parameter settings
Proportion of EVs 0.6% The parameters must be set before calculation. Assume one
Number of EVs 1777
consumer will charge one time per day and spend 17 minutes,
Stockholm in Sweden is divided into 12 districts, among
so the proportion of charging time can be calculated by (13).
which the central four areas, with a high traffic volume, are the
Average daily charging probability of electric vehicle and
gathering places of companies, shops and commercial centers.
lending rate are set by (14) and (15).
The farther from the city center, the more residential areas are.
According to the city zoning map and actual administrative t 17
k   0.0118 (13)
road map, this paper simplifies the structure of the road 24  60
network in Stockholm, sets up a main road network node in ev
  0.85 (14)
each district, as shown in Fig 2, and obtains the Vehicle-hour
of electric vehicle in each region. i  6.8% (15)
As shown in the picture, the number of nodes is n=12, the C. Solving proposed formulation
number of branches is m=13. According to the relationship of Use the function cplexmiqp in Cplex to solve the model.
connection, we can get the matrix of nodes and branches. With Under different constraints of different charging stations and
Google Map, we can easily get the length of 13 roads and also the number of chargers within, this paper optimizes the model
the approximate fixed cost of each station on different roads and obtains different results. One of the results under a certain
(See Table II). constraint is shown as follows:

TABLE III. CHARGING STATION PLANNING RESULTS

Constraints Road amount Distance Cost per

number of from initial day
chargers side (km) ($)
1 0 0
2 0 0
cs 3 0 0
N min  1 4 6 0
cs 5 0 0
N max  4 6 0 0 408.73
ch 7 0 0
N min 0 8 8 0
ch 9 0 0
N max 8 10 3 0
11 0 0
12 0 0
13 3 0
The results in the table above show that charging stations
Fig 2. Simplified view of the road network structure are almost built at nodes and constructed stations reach the
maximum number. This is because the needs of users are at
TABLE II. LENGTH AND FIXED COST OF EACH ROAD nodes. The closer the stations are to the nodes, the more the
Road number 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 cost of charging can be reduced. With more sites and more
Length(km) 7.8 4.6 6.6 4.9 2.7 4.8 2.9 dispersion, it will be more conducive to the user's convenience,
Fixed cost(104$) 6.35 7.14 7.14 8.73 11.1 11.1 11.1 reduce the cost, but will increase the fixed cost of the
Road number 8 9 10 11 12 13 construction of the station.
Length(km) 3.5 7.3 6.3 3.7 6.9 4.3
Fixed cost(104$) 9.52 8.73 7.14 7.14 8.73 7.14

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Fig 3. Optimization result after adjusted
Taken practical difficulties to build charging station at road
crossing points into consideration, the selected charging station
sites can be shifted to the places with lower construction costs.
The adjusted results are illustrated in Fig. 3. Boxes represent
the locations of charging stations. The sizes of the boxes are
proportional to capacities of the charging stations.
D. Result analysis
It can be seen from the results that the charging stations are
mostly concentrated on a few road nodes with large Vehicle-
hour. This is because the closer the charging stations are to the
nodes, the less the time and energy costs are. With the
reduction of total capacity and number of charging stations,
fewer charging stations will be built. Then EV users need to go
through a longer distance to the station for charging, resulting
in higher overall costs.
V. CONCLUSION
Electric vehicles need particular charging facilities to
access the grid. This paper proposes an optimization process of
the optimal siting and sizing of EV charging stations. A
variable called “Vehicle-hour” is defined to represent the
charging demands. After building the transportation network
model using graph theory, an optimization formulation is built
for optimal calculation and planning. The formulation is a
mixed-integer-quadratic-programming problem with different
constraints, and can be solved by commercial optimization
software Cplex. Case study shows that the proposed method
can effectively reduce the investment and operation costs of
electric vehicle charging stations, and facilitate users to charge.
Further work will be done on charging demand modeling
and coordinated planning of charging stations with distribution
networks.
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This work is supported by National High Technology
Research and Development Program of China (863 Program,
2011AA05A110); Projects of National Natural Science
Foundation of China (51107060), State Grid Corporation of
China and China Southern Power Grid.
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BIOGRAPHIES
Long Jia was born in Oct 1988. He received his
Bachelor's degree in 2011 and is pursuing his Ph.D.
degree in the Department of Electrical Engineering at
Tsinghua University (THU), Beijing, China. He is a
member of the team working on Smart Grid
Operation and Optimization Laboratory (SGOOL) at
Tsinghua University. His fields of interests include
optimal planning operation of electric vehicles and
power system.
Zechun Hu (M’09) was born in Nanjing, China. He
received the B.S. degree and Ph.D. degree from Xi’an
Jiao Tong University, Shaanxi, China, in 2000 and
2006, respectively. He worked in Shanghai Jiao Tong
University after graduation and also worked in
University of Bath as a research officer from 2009 to
2010. He joined the Department of Electrical
Engineering at Tsinghua University in 2010 where he
is now an associate professor. His major research
interests include optimal planning, operation of power
systems and electric vehicles.
Yonghua Song was born in January 1964. He
received his BEng and PhD from Chengdu University
of Science and Technology, and China Electric Power
Research Institute in 1984 and 1989 respectively. He
was a Postdoctoral Fellow at Tsinghua University
from June 1989 to March 1991. He then held various
positions at Bristol University, Bath University and
John Moores University from 1991 to 1996. In
January 1997, he was appointed Professor of Power Systems at Brunel
University where he was Pro-Vice Chancellor for Graduate Studies from
August 2004. In 2002, he was awarded DSc by Brunel University for his
original achievements in power system research. In 2004, he was elected
Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering (UK). In January 2007, he took
up a Pro-Vice Chancellorship and Professorship of Electrical Engineering at
the University of Liverpool. In 2008, he was elected Fellow of the Institute of
Electrical and Electronics Engineers (USA). He returned to Tsinghua
University in February 2009 as a Professor at the Department of Electrical
Engineering. In April 2009, he was appointed Assistant President of the
University and Deputy Director of the Laboratory of Low-Carbon Energy. In
June 2009, he was elected Vice-President of Chinese Society for Electrical
Engineering (CSEE) and appointed Chairman of the International Affairs
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Committee of the CSEE. His research areas include Smart Grid, electricity
economics, and operation and control of power systems.
Zhuowei Luo was born in May 1984. He received
his M.S. degree in 2008 at Hunan University,
Changsha, China. He is pursuing his Ph.D. degree
in the Department of Electrical Engineering at
Tsinghua University (THU), Beijing, China. He is
a member of the team working on Smart Grid
Operation and Optimization Laboratory (SGOOL)
at Tsinghua University. His fields of interest
include electric vehicles and power systems
modeling and operations.