Ricerc@Sapienza

Urban Freight Transport is a continuously growing market mainly based on the use of vehicles with combustion engines, whose environmental impact has become unsustainable. Because of the technological improvement of electric vehicles and their growing economic feasibility, the introduction of electric fleets for urban freight distribution is now a considerable opportunity.

Electric car usage has been growing rapidly over the past ten years, cars stock in 2018 exceeded 5 millions, +63% from 2019, Europe is accounting for 24% of the global fleet. The request of fast, rapid and ultra rapid charge is, on the other side, posing electric power network challenges. In this scenario the DSO is interested in exploiting EV charges in terms of flexibility that can be planned in optimized way, especially when it is combined with high penetration of RES.

The electro-mobility of vehicles could solve the negative effects of road transport, by decreasing greenhouse gas emissions. However, some electric vehicles also have a negative impact on the environment related to the nature of electricity used. This paper aims to evaluate the electricity sources for electric vehicles using a Life Cycle Thinking approach. Life cycle assessment, using several midpoints and endpoint methods, highlighted that the most damaging sources were lignite and diesel, while hydropower, wind, and biomass were the most sustainable ones.

The need for efficient integration of an Electric Vehicles (EVs) public transportation system into Smart Grids (SGs), has sparked the idea to equip them with Renewable Energy Systems (RESs), in order to reduce their impact on the SG. As a consequence, an EV can be seen as a Nanogrid (NG) whose energy flows are optimized by an Energy Management System (EMS). In this work, an EMS for an electric boat is synthesized by a Fuzzy Inference System-Hierarchical Genetic Algorithm (FIS-HGA). The electric boat follows cyclic routes day by day.

The paper proposes a methodological approach to manage the electric vehicles recharging in an isolated power system characterized by low short circuit power. Focusing on harmonic disturbances, current harmonics injected in the network depend on the specific EV power converter. The model carried out allows for the evaluation of harmonic disturbances under variable conditions for non-linear loads and their harmonic spectra. The methodology allows estimating both current and voltage total harmonic distortion (THDV, THDI) at the point of common coupling (PCC).

Transport is a main source of pollutants in cities, where air quality is a major concern. New transport technologies, such as electric vehicles, and public transport modalities, such as urban railways, have arisen as solutions to this important problem. One of the main difficulties for the adoption of electric vehicles by consumers is the scarcity of a suitable charging infrastructure. The use of the railway power supplies to charge electric vehicle batteries could facilitate the deployment of charging infrastructure in cities.

This paper deals with a first attempt to evaluate the technical and economic feasibility of a sharing mobility scenario for the central area of Rome in the year 2035. The main aspects of the proposed scenario focus on the use of electric automated vehicles, on car sharing, on limitations of the use of private cars and on road pricing in the central area of the city. The results indicate a technical and financial feasibility of the scenario.