| Summary: | Enabling vehicles to draw energy from an electric road system (ERS) significantly reduces the need for battery capacity on board the vehicle. It is not necessary, nor realistic, to cover every meter of every stretch of road with ERS. The question then arises how and where the ERS sections should be placed. One way of doing it is to place equally long sections of ERS with a certain separating distance. Another way is to place the sections where the highest amount of traction power of the vehicles is required. This paper presents a performance evaluation of both these methods from an energy consumption and battery degradation point of view. This study assumes a conductive ERS which allows for high power transfer. Being conductive, galvanic isolation between the energy source (the ERS) and the on board traction voltage system (TVS) is needed for electric safety reasons. In addition to the two alternative methods for location of ERS segments, three different powertrains, each with a different approach to galvanic isolation and charging, are evaluated. It is discovered that the method for location of the ERS can in fact affect both energy consumption and battery degradation depending on powertrain and driving scenario.
|
|---|