DR. AL-MUTAIRI PUBLISHES A PAPER ON THE PUBLIC AWARENESS OF ELECTRIC VEHICLES IN SAUDI ARABIA

Dr. Abdulaziz Al-Mutairi, a faculty member at the College of Engineering, MU, published a paper in a journal with a high impact factor on Plug-in electric vehicles and their impact on power generation availability: A real survey-based analysis in Saudi Arabia.

Dr. Al-Mutairi pointed out that transportation electrification is considered as a viable option to reduce the dependence of transportation sector on the fossil-fuels.

Different countries have ambitious plans to enhance the penetration of electric vehicles (EVs) to meet their sustainability goals.

A survey is conducted in five different regions of Saudi Arabia and total of over 1600 trip data samples are collected. The data is then processed to extract different features of the driving patterns. The driver data along with data of commercially available EVs is utilized to estimate the per-unit load profiles of EVs.

The per-unit profiles are utilized to estimate the load of EV fleet considering the commonly used charging levels in the residential sector. Different penetration levels of EVs are considered using the current and future projected number of vehicles up to 2025.

The ability of the power network to sustain these penetration levels are analyzed in Saudi Arabia. Moreover, several policy considerations are put forward for the sustainable deployment of the EVs in the country.