Electrical Vehicle Charging Station Profit Maximization: Admission, Pricing, and Online Scheduling

The rapid emergence of electric vehicles (EVs) demands an advanced infrastructure of publicly accessible charging stations that provide efficient charging services. In this paper, we propose a new charging station operation mechanism, the Joint Admission and Pricing (JoAP), which jointly optimizes the EV admission control, pricing, and charging scheduling to maximize the charging station's profit. More specifically, by introducing a tandem queueing network model, we analytically characterize the average charging station profit as a function of the admission control and pricing policies. Based on the analysis, we characterize the optimal JoAP algorithm. Through extensive simulations, we demonstrate that the proposed JoAP algorithm on average can achieve 330% and 531% higher profit than a widely adopted benchmark method under two representative waiting-time penalty rates.

I. Introduction

Environmental awareness and the rising fuel cost have stimulated an increasing interest in electrical vehicles (EVs). Establishing a conveniently available public charging infrastructure is essential to ensure a large market penetration of EVs [1]. Currently, however, many charging facilities are not yet profitable due to low expected revenues, high capital expenditures, and high operating and maintenance costs [2].