Credit-based Scheme for Managing Electric Vehicle Charging Stations: First Results from a Field-Experiment

Abstract

This paper presents the findings of the first stage of a comprehensive field experiment, designed to investigate the effectiveness of a Tradable Credit Scheme (TCS) in managing Electric Vehicle (EV) charging stations at the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre (JRC) Ispra site. The experiment, spanned 17 weeks and involved 136 JRC EV-owning employees. Participants were allocated a certain sum of credits at the beginning of each experimental week, which could be spent on energy to charge their EVs. Along with the tariffs for the energy delivered, a penalty regime was also applied to discourage unfair charging behaviors by limiting charging time to a maximum of three hours and penalizing users who occupied charging slots after reaching 100% charge. The results indicate that, compared to the conditions prior to the experiment, the proposed scheme has led to a more efficient utilization of charging stations, with a decrease of non-use time.