Assessment of renewable energy technologies for charging electric vehicles in Canada

• Techno-economic analysis conducted for EV charging from wind and hydro.
• EV charging from hydro energy is cost competitive than from wind energy.
• GHG mitigation estimated from operation of EV charged from renewable energy.
• Sensitivity of key parameters on cost of charging considered.

Electric vehicle charging by renewable energy can help reduce greenhouse gas emissions. This paper presents a data-intensive techno-economic model to estimate the cost of charging an electric vehicle with a battery capacity of 16 kW h for an average travel distance of 65 km from small-scale renewable electricity in various jurisdictions in Canada. Six scenarios were developed that encompass scale of operation, charging time, and type of renewable energy system. The costs of charging an electric vehicle from an off-grid wind energy system at a charging time of 8 h is 56.8–58.5 cents/km in Montreal, Quebec, and 58.5–60.0 cents/km in Ottawa, Ontario. However, on integration with a small-scale hydro, the charging costs are 9.4–11.2 cents/km in Montreal, 9.5–11.1 cents/km in Ottawa and 10.2–12.2 cents/km in Vancouver, British Columbia. The results show that electric vehicle charging from small-scale hydro energy integration is cost competitive compared charging from conventional grid electricity in all the chosen jurisdictions. Furthermore, when the electric vehicle charging time decreases from 8 to 4 h, the cost of charging increases by 83% and 11% from wind and hydro energy systems, respectively.