Energy, economic and environmental benefits of a car-sharing system with electric vehicles integrated into a renewable energy community

Abstract

The deployment of electric mobility can lead to a reduction in global greenhouse gas emissions, to which the transport sector contributes about 25 %. This positive impact is maximized if energy from renewable sources is mainly used, although electric vehicles diffusion is limited by the lower availability of public charging stations and the high purchase cost compared to internal combustion vehicles. In this context, electric vehicles car-sharing systems can play a significant role. This paper proposes a car-sharing system based on electric vehicles embedded in a Renewable Energy Community. To evaluate the performance of the proposed system, it has been designed for a municipality in southern Italy, assuming that renewable energy is produced by photovoltaic panels. Corresponding energy, environmental and economic benefits are evaluated by comparing different layouts, including conventional and electric vehicles, for the same fleet size and travelled distance. Assessments of energy sharing were made considering hourly and daily time intervals. A sensitivity analysis has been conducted considering four different sizes of the photovoltaic plant (from 15 kW to 30 kW). The obtained outcomes show the proposed system results in greater savings in primary energy and CO₂ equivalent emissions as the plant size increases, due to the energy shared among community members and the surplus electricity fed into the power grid. From an economic perspective, this scenario achieves the highest annual income, but due to the higher initial investment cost, the simple payback period is more favourable for the system with conventional vehicles.