Developing Strategies to Keep EV Charging Stations Operational

A power outage can leave electric vehicle owners stranded. Researchers are exploring ways to make charging stations more resilient to such outages. RECHARGE, a project led by Iowa State University researchers, aims to reduce outage rates and restore power more quickly, ensuring that electric vehicles can continue to operate even during extreme weather events.

A storm-induced power outage can leave people stranded overnight without electricity to charge their electric vehicles.

It is a double problem. There is no electricity. And you cannot go anywhere.

Zhaoyu Wang, Professor, Electrical and Computer Engineering, Iowa State University

Wang and his research colleagues have received a $1.2 million grant over two years from the federal government's Joint Office of Energy and Transportation, with an additional $300,000 in cost-share funds from research partners.

The project's objectives include:

• Developing strategies for charging station resiliency in Ames, Dayton, Ohio, and Indianapolis, Indiana.
• Researching three potential ways to keep chargers operational during blackouts.
• Creating methods to quickly restore power at EV charging stations after blackouts.
• Updating the government's Geospatial Energy Mapper with data on charging stations.
• Reducing charger outage rates by 75 % and cutting power restoration times by 50 %.

Ian Dobson and Anne Kimber are collaborating with Wang on the project. Partners include Argonne National Laboratory of the US Department of Energy (located close to Chicago), AES Corp. (a multinational energy corporation with operations in Indiana and Ohio), and Ames Municipal Utilities.

RECHARGE the Ride

The researchers are calling the project RECHARGE, which stands for Resilience Evaluation and Enhancement of Charging Stations with Hierarchical Adaptive Restoration of Grids and Distributed Energy Resources.

According to Wang, there will be two main steps in the project:

First, we need to evaluate EV charging stations’ resiliency in extreme weather events. For example, in storms and power outages, charging stations may be out as well. Now, you may not be able to drive because of a lack of working charging stations.

Zhaoyu Wang, Professor, Electrical and Computer Engineering, Iowa State University

The researchers will analyze real outage data from Ames, Dayton, and Indianapolis over several years to assess the frequency of issues and recovery times. Each charging station will be assigned a "resilience score" based on the findings.

According to Wang, these scores will help identify which charging stations require maintenance.

The second phase will focus on developing technology to reinforce these stations. The researchers are considering three concepts: vehicles that deliver pre-charged batteries to stations after storms, charging stations equipped with solar power and battery storage, and “double feeding” power to stations with redundant cables from multiple substations.

While the study will not include pilot tests of the technologies, Wang noted it will provide valuable insights for utilities preparing for a future with increased electricity demands.

This will help us understand resilience levels for electric vehicle charging stations. If we want to build more of them, the resilience scores can help determine where they are built. This is another piece of information.

Zhaoyu Wang, Professor, Electrical and Computer Engineering, Iowa State University

It is important information, Wang said, “because this is critical infrastructure for daily transportation.”