Abstract:

The transportation sector, particularly road transport, has become one of the most polluting factors in the environment due to the continued usage of internal combustion fossil fuel engines by vehicles. Due to technological and environmental constraints, the automotive industry has shifted its focus to the design of electric vehicles. The key idea in the transportation sector to minimise gas pollution has been electricity, and its adoption has had a good effect on other sectors. As part of the safeguarding the clean energy project and attempts to cut carbon emissions by 90% compared to 1990 levels by 2050, the European Union has set targets to minimise greenhouse gas emissions in total energy consumption. The aforesaid issues are exacerbated by the transportation sector. Focusing on their fight, European authorities have invested and continue to invest in electric propulsion. In the European Union, electric mobility has grown tremendously in the last decade. Specifically, more and more automobile industries are turning their interest in electric technology to replace conventional cars which they use internal combustion engine. This study tries to evaluate the impact of the electric vehicle penetration in the electricity demand and related emissions inside the EU, in three steps. First, the penetration of electric vehicles into the Union is evaluated through literature review, then the impact in electricity demand due to the electric vehicles penetration is estimated and finally the emission of carbon dioxide gases allocated to these changes in the electricity demand are calculated based on official data published by EuroStat. The results were calculated using the most common prognostic tools in order to identify expected trends, and they showed that future electrification in transportation will support efforts to reduce carbon emissions, but not as quickly as expected, because electricity generation in the EU is still largely based on fossil fuels. This research has led to conclusions about the penetration of BEV and the effects that electricity demand will have on the environment with two quantitative methods.