Latest Energy Storage Trends in Multi-Energy Standalone Electric Vehicle Charging Stations: A Comprehensive Study

Abstract

The popularity of electric vehicles (EVs) is increasing day by day due to their environmentally friendly operation and high milage as compared to conventional fossil fuel vehicles. Almost all leading manufacturers are working on the development of EVs. The main problem associated with EVs is that charging many of these vehicles from the grid supply system imposes an extra burden on them, especially during peak hours, which results in high per-unit costs. As a solution, EV charging stations integrated with hybrid renewable energy resources (HREs) are being preferred, which utilize multi-energy systems to produce electricity. These charging stations can either be grid-tied or isolated. Isolated EV charging stations are operated without any interconnection to the main grid. These stations are also termed standalone or remote EV charging stations, and due to the absence of a grid supply, storage becomes compulsory for these systems. To attain maximum benefits from a storage system, it must be configured properly with the EV charging station. In this paper, different types of the latest energy storage systems (ESS) are discussed with a comprehensive review of configurations of these systems for multi-energy standalone EV charging stations. ESS in these charging stations is applied mainly in three different configurations, named single storage systems, multi-storage systems, and swappable storage systems. These configurations are discussed in detail with their pros and cons. Some important expectations from future energy storage systems are also highlighted.