CEE team to study electric vehicle community charging hubs

A CEE research group has been awarded a $350,000 grant to study electric vehicle community charging hubs for residents of multi-unit dwellings who don’t have reliable access to home charging infrastructure. Led by transportation assistant professor Eleftheria Kontou, the project is one of 55 across the country announced in July by the U.S. Department of Energy representing $139 million in research to support new and innovative advanced vehicle technologies.

“The Kontou research group is excited to work on a novel model for community charging hubs operations which can support equitable access to sustainable and electrified mobility,” Kontou said.

Community charging hubs currently exist for low-income neighborhoods but are a new concept for multi-unit housing, Kontou said. The objective of the project will be to develop and apply an open-source computational tool to plan for the electric vehicle charging needs of residents in multi-unit dwellings, determine optimal charging scheduling, and estimate the energy use, costs and benefits of providing such a community charging hub service.