Optimizing the positions of battery swapping stations - Pilot studies and layout optimization algorithm -

Abstract

For electric scooters, battery swapping is a promising alternative to battery charging due to the lower weight and volume of their batteries that allows a manual replacement at battery swapping stations. Mobile batteries are shared between all users and the target of the operator is therefore to maximize the customer satisfaction while minimizing system set-up and operation costs. Here we give an overview of Honda’s activities for a Battery as a Service (BaaS) business in Indonesia, Philippines and India, while looking specifically at the optimal placement of battery swapping stations with a given customer demand. Multiple objectives like set-up cost, energy costs, and customer detours are considered. We employ a Large Neighborhood Search (LNS) approach that uses specific destroy and repair operators for each objective and includes a Mixed Integer Linear Programming (MILP) element for repairing solutions. Our results show that the employed LNS outperforms a state-of-the-art pure MILP approach for larger problem sizes with up to 500 potential station locations and 1000 trips. Overall 10-30% better results compared to standard approaches can be obtained.