Urban-DEPOT: Deploying EV Charging Infrastructure in an Urban Environment

Transportation is a major source of greenhouse gas emissions and air pollution, with emissions from light-duty vehicles constituting its major share. For example, the light-duty vehicles in New York City(NYC) emit 80% of the city’s total transportation emissions. Electrified transportation is one of the critical aspects of the global trend towards decarbonization. With light-duty electric vehicle (EV) prices rapidly declining to as low as $18,875 (after United States (US) federal tax credits and state rebates) and their ranges expanding to 400 miles, it is anticipated that access to charging infrastructure will become the most prominent adoption barrier for EVs. The significance of the availability and affordability of charging infrastructure for adopting EVs is difficult to understate. From a planning perspective, insufficient EV charging infrastructure manifests itself in suppressed EV demand, discouraging private sector investments in EV charging. Thus, public investments and policy incentives are required for seeding EV charging infrastructure market. Similarly, from the consumers’ perspective, the availability of public EV charging is an important factor in decisions for EV purchases in the US.  Thus, access to EV charging infrastructure shares a symbiotic relationship with EV adoption, and subsequently with the global decarbonization efforts. Therefore, the problem of access to and affordability of public EV charging infrastructure is one of the foremost bottlenecks in EV adoption, and hence, is critical for all stakeholders in EV roll-out, including investor-owned charging companies, electric power utilities, consumers, and regulators.

Deploying “public” EV charging infrastructure is critical to carbon neutrality and EV adoption goals, especially in densely populated metropolitan areas where alternatives such as residential charging (e.g. garage) and charge-while-parking are limited and often are not available at all. 

This research effort develops tools for forecasting electric vehicle charging demand and for placing and siting electric vehicles charging stations in an urban environment, while considering transportation, electric grid, and urban – space constraints. The project engages two private – sector organizations which are directly associated with the proposed effort: Consolidated Edison and ChargePoint.