Design and Simulation of a Battery Swapping System for Electric Vehicles

Electric vehicles show a significant potential both to reduce carbon emissions due to an energy storage system which can be recharged using renewable energy sources. The long time it takes to recharge the batteries of an electric car can be a limit to its spread and reach a "massive adoption". This work aims at evaluating the feasibility of using an automated battery swapping system for vehicles in the city of Turin in Italy. The battery swapping station was designed by using real data from a leading company in warehouse handling. (GAP nu) Various configurations were proposed by varying the number of stations operating in the city, the number of cars served simultaneously in each station and the number of automatic guided vehicles that replace the battery in the stations. The analysis was conducted by using a discrete event simulation model. The customer service, the infrastructure costs and the battery life cycle preservation were considered as performance indicators. The obtained results showed that the project is feasible both from an infrastructural point of view and an energetic point of view.