Large-scale implementation of electric road systems: Associated costs and the impact on CO2 emissions

Journal article, 2020

This study investigates a large-scale implementation of an electric road system (ERS) in Norway and Sweden by identifying: (i) which roads; (ii) how much of the road network; and (iii) which vehicle types are beneficial to electrify based on an analysis of current road traffic volumes, CO2 emissions mitigation potential, and infrastructure investment costs. All the European (E) and National (N) roads in Norway and Sweden were included, while assuming different degrees of electrification in terms of the fraction of the road length with an ERS, prioritizing roads with high-traffic loads. The results show that implementing an ERS already for 25% of the E- and N-road lengths could result in electrification of 70% of the traffic on these roads, as well as 35% of the total vehicle kilometers in Norway and Sweden. The ERS will then connect some of the larger cities with ERS. Installation of ERS on all the E- and N-roads in the two countries would cover more than 60% of the CO2 emissions from all heavy traffic assuming all vehicles run on electricity. For roads with an average daily traffic of >6800 and >1200 vehicles per day, the costs of infrastructure investment are ∼0.03 € 2016 per vkm and ∼0.15 € 2016 per vkm, respectively. Thereby, for roads with high traffic volumes using an ERS, the total driving cost per km using an ERS (0.23–0.55 € 2016 per vkm) does not seem to be an issue. Light vehicles appear to be important bringing down the ERS infrastructure cost.