Imagine walking down a quiet urban street at dusk. The lamps flicker on, casting pools of warm light on the pavement. But these aren’t just streetlights, they’re power outlets for charging your electric vehicle.
In a world racing toward electrified transportation, one stubborn roadblock remains – limited charging infrastructure. Not everyone has a garage, a driveway, or the luxury of installing a home EV charger. So how do we make clean mobility truly equitable?
Penn State researchers have proposed a clever, street-level solution. Turn everyday streetlamps into EV chargers.
They developed a scalable framework to transform streetlights into low-cost, community-friendly EV chargers. But this isn’t just about plugging in. It’s about equity. The researchers worked closely with communities in Kansas City to ensure that the benefits of streetlight charging aren’t limited to wealthier areas or high-traffic zones.
Using demand and equity analyses, researchers selected 23 streetlights and installed EV charging stations.
Streetlight chargers come with some clever perks. They’re already right next to the curb, making it easy to plug in where you park. Because cities own the poles, installing and managing them is simpler, and can even spark local jobs and economic growth.
Best of all? They tap into existing power lines and structures, reducing costs and increasing the overall efficiency of the system. It’s innovative, practical, and built on what’s already there.
“The motivation for this work comes from the fact that many apartment and multi-unit dwelling residents, particularly in urban and downtown areas, lack access to dedicated home EV chargers, since they don’t have the privilege of owning a garage,” said Xianbiao Hu from Penn State.
With support from the US Department of Energy, researchers collaborated with the Kansas City Metro Energy Center, local utility companies, and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory for this work. They then established a three-pronged framework looking at demand, feasibility, and community benefits, to help other cities do the same and bring fair, affordable charging to more neighborhoods.
Researchers began with a two-step site selection strategy: first, they identified areas with the highest charging demand, then, they layered in equity. This helped them pinpoint the best spots for installing chargers.
They analyzed key factors like land use, existing station density, nearby points of interest, and traffic volume. Then fed all that data into AI models trained to predict where demand would be highest. The result? A data-driven map of ideal charging spots.
Next, they tested the idea in the real world. Using data from 23 retrofitted streetlight chargers in Kansas City, Missouri, they compared the performance of these units with that of traditional charging stations. Their evaluation also explored the environmental payoff, measuring how much gasoline use and greenhouse gas emissions could be reduced by switching to streetlight-based charging.
According to their findings, these chargers deliver faster charging speeds, confirming their viability as a practical solution in real-world applications. Interestingly, vehicles tend to stay parked at these chargers for shorter periods, likely due to limited curbside parking or associated costs. However, even with shorter charging sessions, the environmental impact remains striking.
Compared to conventional stations, streetlight chargers reduced gasoline use by 11.94% and greenhouse gas emissions by 11.24% more than conventional charging stations, a clear win for cleaner, greener cities.
Next, the researchers plan to refine their models by incorporating socio-economic data and weather information. Why? Socioeconomic details can help identify communities that may struggle with EV access, ensuring chargers are located where they’re needed most. And weather matters too: extreme temperatures can impact battery life, the frequency of driving, and the amount of energy used.
Together, their work lays the foundation for a future where clean mobility is powered by the very poles that light our streets.
The research was published in the Journal of Urban Planning and Development.
Source: Penn State
