Community Charging of Electric Cars in Residential Areas with Multi-Story Buildings

In Germany, the share of the greenhouse gas emissions from the transport sector has remained constant at around 20% for years. However, according to the German Climate Protection Act, it should decrease to zero until 2045. In order to achieve this goal, replacing combustion engine cars by battery electric cars is an important pillar. In Germany, however, about 50% of households live in multi-story buildings that currently lack sufficient charging infrastructure. While single and two-family houses can be easily upgraded with a wallbox off the shelf, the power grids connecting to multi-story buildings are not designed to manage the simultaneous charging of batteries in larger quantities. We present an efficient and cost-effective approach to coordinate the charging actions to share limited charging power by means of a smartphone app to overcome this problem. Furthermore, the paper quantifies the benefits of planning the charging actions according to the weather forecast for maximal exploiting any available solar power.