Charging Station Location Optimization of Electric Ship Based on Backup Coverage Model

In terms of electric ship energy requirement in navigation, the ship charging station location is especially important. In this paper, a multi‐period ship charging station location optimization model is pro‐ posed to make location decision in overall, from initial possible station sites chosen to the capacity determination for the final location sites. In the first phase, from the perspective of external environment, find out all possible ship charging station candidate sites through the feasible analyze. In the second phase, taking the ship charging demands into consideration, the final ship charging station sites can be selected among the candidate sites based on backup coverage model. In the last phase, regarding the cost of construction and service capability for different grade as the main factor in capacity determination, the optimal capacity of each final ship charging station are determined by means of optimization method. Finally, an example of Yanqi lake in China is used to verify the validity of the proposed methodology. The reasonable location of charging station could ensure the electric energy supply and avoid congestion caused by ship charging gathering. The model can be easily generalized to other problems regarding facility allocation based on user demand. http://www.transnav.eu the International Journal on Marine Navigation and Safety of Sea Transportation Volume 11