
doi: 10.2139/ssrn.3560677
Problem definition: Nonrenewable energy is typically recognized as ''dirty energy'' with respect to the environment such that most countries reduce their nonrenewable facilities and then improve their renewable energy adoption. In this paper, we study and develop effective hybrid energy generation and charging operations strategies with the aim of exploring and enhancing the environmental benefits of nonrenewable energy integrated electric vehicle (EV) charging service in a planning problem for photovoltaic (PV) charging stations. Academic/Practical relevance: Our research contributes to the literature on and practice of sustainable operations management by developing an integrated stochastic robust planning model that allows us to explore its implications in three areas: (1) the environmental benefits of nonrenewable energy synthesis, (2) integrated modeling with processor-sharing queuing to optimize the EV charging service coupled with renewable energy power scheduling, (3) the performance of proposed demand response (DR) policies that incorporate the features of intermittent energy, such as unstable solar resources. Methodology: We characterize the fleet charging dynamics by adopting a processor-sharing queuing network in a mixed integer programming (MIP) integrated planning model. We model the uncertain solar resources in a worst-case expectation weighted by geometric-like probabilities obtained by processor-sharing queuing modeling. We then develop its linear equivalent form to approximate a tractable optimization model. We also adopt a multinomial logit (MNL) model to estimate customers’ charing utilities and the incentive payment across time slots in our integrated DR policy. Results: In a real-world case study of CAR2GO in Amsterdam, we find that nonrenewable energy integration improves clean energy utilization and provides a reliable and cost-effective EV charging service under current PV charging practice. The results also demonstrate the advantages of the proposed DR policy in incorporating uncertain solar resources on the reliability, profitability and environmental benefits of the EV charging service. Managerial implications: In their efforts to improve renewable energy planning, policy-makers should be more prudent about giving up nonrenewable energy. Certain reasonable features - synthesizing DR operations coupled with efficient energy scheduling - can alleviate the adverse impacts of intermittency and uncertainties that plague renewable energy and, in turn, gradually improve the quality of EV charging services.
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