Scenario analysis for clean energy vehicles in UK considering introduction of renewable energy sources

For achieving a sustainable society, clean energy vehicles (CEVs), such as electric and fuel cell vehicles, can play a significant role in reducing CO₂ pollution in the transport sector. Each type of CEV has certain characteristics: vehicle running range, Life Cycle CO₂(LCCO₂), cost, fuel efficiency, etc. Therefore, in order to accomplish CO₂ reduction targets in the UK, this paper calculates optimized CEV portfolios by considering each CEV’s characteristics. The objective is to minimize a CEV system that includes running, vehicle manufacturing, and infrastructure costs. Constraints are defined by the vehicle sales number, vehicle price, energy price, etc. A CEV optimized portfolio is calculated for each year to provide ideas for determining future CEV policy for government and industries. Few conventional studies show optimized CEV portfolios by considering mixed rates of renewable energy sources (RES). However, they did employ one case of RES introduction rate, but this study employs many RES introduction scenarios. Results suggest that introducing a high RES date contributes to reducing EV’s LCCO₂ dramatically and reaching the UK target without great reduction of GVs and DVs. In the scenario of high RES introduction rate, differences are widening among EVs, GVs, and DVs in their amounts of CO₂ pollution.