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The decarbonisation of the transport sector (primarily through electrification) has become one of the priorities of most advanced economies nowadays, including the UK, in the fight against climate change. This transformation is usually supported by national legislation that aims to facilitate the transition to more environmentally friendly technologies. For instance, the UK has recently mandated the ban on all new petrol and diesel car sales by 2030. Similar initiatives were undertaken by other countries like the Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Austria, Japan, Italy and many others.
In 2021, 18.6% of the new car registrations in the UK were plug-in EVs (BEVs and PHEVs), a significant increase from 2020 when only 10.7% of the new car registrations were related to plug-in EVs. Yet, in 2022, the share of new plug-in sales has been 20.6%, a negligible increase compared to the previous year. Hydrogen fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEVs) are perceived as an alternative to BEVs and PHEVs, albeit their retail prices are still inaccessible to most buyers. Yet, it is expected that FCEVs will be an important part of the decarbonisation process and will eventually take a considerable part of the market share.
A necessary condition for the effective adoption of BEVs, PHEVs and FCEVs is the availability and accessibility to the required infrastructure, i.e., charging/refuelling stations. The UK EV infrastructure strategy has a provision that more than 300,000 charging points will be available by 2030. The available technologies for such stations currently can vary a lot hence the decision on the appropriate type is not straightforward. In addition to that, the exact location for the installation of a charging point is usually the result of an optimisation process where parameters such as the potential available users, safety, accessibility, land use, visibility, surrounding street network, traffic flow and many others are factored.
Optimisation approaches have been studied extensively in urban setups, however, there is limited understanding on the required approaches and appropriate technologies (e.g., types of charging stations, charging vs H2 refuelling stations, etc) to be used in rural setups, where the demands and the available solutions will be widely different. This becomes of paramount importance for countries like Scotland that are predominantly rural; with a population density 70 people per km2, 91% of Scotland's population lives in communities, which make up only 2.3% of Scotland's total land area.
The objective of this work will be to develop appropriate models for establishing networks of charging and/or refuelling stations appropriate for rural areas, using evolutionary and machine learning algorithms. These models will need consider among others, the requirements of the distribution network (centralised vs decentralised), the possible revenue, the available public transport, the convenience of the users, the renewable energy sources, the local geography and others.
Academic qualifications
A first-class honours degree, or a distinction at master level, or equivalent achievements ideally in Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, or Civil Engineering.
English language requirement
If your first language is not English, comply with the University requirements for research degree programmes in terms of English language.
Application process
Prospective applicants are encouraged to contact the supervisor, Dr Stathis Tingas ([Email Address Removed]) to discuss the content of the project and the fit with their qualifications and skills before preparing an application.
The application must include:
Research project outline of 2 pages (list of references excluded). The outline may provide details about
The outline must be created solely by the applicant. Supervisors can only offer general discussions about the project idea without providing any additional support.
Applications can be submitted here.
Download a copy of the project details here.
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