Keeping electricity affordable on wireless charging highways

Blaine Friedlander, 20 October 2022 | Tech Xplore

Efficient pricing will be crucial to minimize energy costs for private operators who provide on-the-highway wireless charging for electric cars—and for consumers who will use this service, according to new Cornell research in Applied Energy.

Employing dynamic pricing strategies in the marketplace could save consumers as much as 6% off the retail electricity price, according to the new paper, which envisions future wireless charging highways that allay so-called “range anxiety” about low batteries on longer trips.

“Electrifying transportation is great, since you can eliminate carbon emissions,” said senior author Oliver Gao, the Howard Simpson Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering in Cornell Engineering. “You can energize your car while driving in the charging lane. But if you’re managing a charging highway that can provide energy to cars, you’re buying and selling electricity on an industrial scale. We’re trying to suggest a smart business strategy.”

Electricity prices can change drastically within a day, according to Gao, who is a faculty fellow at the Cornell Atkinson Center for Sustainability.

An efficient bidding strategy is crucial to minimizing the energy cost for operators of wireless charging roads. The primary goal of the new research is to design a competitive, price-sensitive demand bidding strategy for wireless charging road owners—who have electricity storage capacity.