As electric vehicles become more common, the demand for fast charging stations rapidly increases. At the same time, interest in the role of artificial intelligence (AI) in shaping electricity prices is growing.
Recent studies by researchers at Chalmers University of Technology show that AI-powered charging stations can offer personalised prices to electric vehicle users, which users can accept or decline. By using algorithms, these stations can adjust pricing based on individual factors such as battery level and current location of the electric vehicle user. In such context, a smart fast charging station maximizes its cumulative profit.
“Electric vehicle users can share information with service providers, for example via an app, and in turn they receive a personal price,” says Balázs Kulcsár, Professor at the Department of Electrical Engineering at Chalmers University of Technology.
Are electric vehicle users offered a fair pricing?
“In our study, when an electric vehicle user accepts a price, the user minimizes its cost and wait time. This rational decision is done without knowing the other electric vehicle users’ personalized prices or decisions,” says Balázs Kulcsár.
From the service providers perspective, the profit maximizing AI algorithm aims to learn an individual price that is still acceptable by the user. The personalized prices that users receive may differ significantly from each other.
One way to lower the difference in the received personalized price is to create smart clusters of users and refuse or accept personalised prices in groups. For this, electric vehicle users must share their own personal prices and eventually change their behaviour to adapt to other users' prices.
Nevertheless, there are ethical issues associated with AI implementation that need to be considered.
“Our results show that AI-based fast charging stations must be implemented in a responsible and ethical way otherwise it may misuse the users’ information to maximize profit. By integrating ethical standards with privacy protection, AI-driven price mechanisms can pave the way for new pricing mechanisms,” Balázs Kulcsár explains.
Competing with many smart fast charging stations and coalitions of non-selfish electric car users can contribute new price guidelines and can be an interesting future research direction.
Facts:
• The research is a collaborative effort between Chalmers University of Technology and Sangjun Bae (Seyong Cyber University) and Sebastian Gros (Norwegian University of Science and Technology).
• The research is financed by the Swedish Electromobility Center and in part by an ongoing EU project ELaas.
Link to scientific article
For more information, contact:
- Professor, Systems and Control, Electrical Engineering