Environmental assessment of electric vehicle deployment pathways for Europe

Electric Vehicle Deployment Pathways for Europe was a collaborative research project involving NTNU Industrial Ecology, NTNU Electric Power Engineering, TU Berlin - Chair of Sustainable Engineering. Indirect contributions were made by the international institute of applied systems analysis (IIASA) through project staff participation in their Young Scientists Summer Program (YSSP). The project started in the spring of 2017 and concluded in the spring of 2021. The project sought the combination of outcomes from Integrated Assessment Modelling, with Electric Power System Modelling and different Industrial Ecology Modelling approaches to provide outcomes that could inform the development of policies for decarbonization of European light-duty vehicle fleet. In this project, we did for example, combine power system modeling and data on the European level with state-of-the-art LCA approaches in a flexible modeling framework. This was applied to assess the combined footprints of producing and operating Battery electric vehicles across the different European countries. The analysis compared electric vs conventional vehicles across four segments. The results also demonstrated significant variability in the GHG reduction benefits of electric vehicles vs conventional vehicles across the different countries in Europe as of 2020. Does differences in GHG reductions suggest different policies? The project does not explicitly answer that but provides documentation for debate and discussion. Another example of work performed in the project is an analysis of the carbon footprints of charging patterns throughout the day and night in 2050 under different decarbonization scenarios for the European power sector. For this work, we applied outcomes from the Integrated assessment model MESSAGEix to scope prospective power systems at the country level in 2050 that were compatible with trajectories towards a two-degree target. The results showed that there could be significant variability in GHG emissions associated with electricity for charging electric vehicles throughout the day and night also in a European power system in 2050. This suggests that understanding power system responses and GHG footprints of increased demand for charging electric vehicles will still be important going forward. The project is currently wrapping up its final assessment that looks into how different European countries could optimally phase in electric vehicles. This also includes cases with constraints on, for example, battery productions. The intention is that the final results are published by the end of 2021.

This project will ultimately yield a total of 8 peer-reviewed research papers as well as the completion of a PhD. The papers cover methodological advances as well as applications. Key findings included that there can be significant variability in GHG emissions associated with electricity for charging electric vehicles throughout the day and night also in a European power system in 2050. This suggests that understanding power system responses and GHG footprints of increased demand for charging electric vehicles will still be important going forward. The results also demonstrate significant heterogeneity of the carbon footprints of electric vehicles across the different countries in Europe as of 2020. This means that the mitigation benefits of Electric vehicles vary significantly across the same countries. The project has yet to publish its final results wrt optimal phase in strategies of BEVs in Europe. The results are expected to support further development of European EV Policies.

In this project, we aim to enhance the current state of knowledge regarding the environmental implications of large-scale electric vehicle deployment in the passenger transport sector in Europe, and to use these insights to provide guidance to policy makers in the promotion or stimulation of optimal deployment pathway strategies. We will specifically address the timing of deployment; that is, whether potential widespread deployments should happen in the near term, medium term or long term. The approach used here requires a mapping of future personal transport modes and travel activities, as well as of the future European electricity mix. By combining existing transport and power market models with life cycle assessment methodology, we determine the environmental impact of future electrical vehicles and electricity. These results will then be combined to model future transport scenarios. These scenarios can then be used to determine the optimal timing for a mass deployment of electrical vehicles.