A Comprehensive Review on Strategic Allocation of Renewables and Electric Vehicle Infrastructure in Future Power Networks

The global shift towards cleaner energy and sustainable mobility, motivated by international climate commitments such as the Paris Agreement, has accelerated the adoption of electric vehicles (EVs) and renewable energy sources (RESs). In this chapter, a comprehensive review of the key challenges is presented, including enabling technologies and optimisation approaches involved in jointly deploying electric vehicle charging stations (EVCSs) and renewable generation within active distribution networks. Its novelty lies in presenting a framework that integrates technical, economic, environmental, and regulatory perspectives, while formulating a taxonomy that links energy management, optimisation, and policy aspects into a unified planning framework. The review identifies four main categories of barriers: technical, economic and infrastructural, environmental, and planning or regulatory. It also explores a variety of EV charging strategies, such as vehicle-to-grid, grid-to-vehicle (G2V), inductive wireless charging, battery swapping, and smart charging, to assess their influence on load profiles and grid stability. To enable reliable and flexible integration of EVCSs and RESs, advanced energy management frameworks are examined, including demand response strategies, aggregator-based distributed control, and hierarchical control architectures. Furthermore, the chapter highlights the importance of multi-objective optimisation in managing trade-offs among competing goals, such as cost efficiency, carbon reduction, voltage stability, and social acceptance. It reviews a range of decision-support tools for optimal siting, sizing, and operation of EVCS and RES infrastructure. Overall, this work provides a well-structured synthesis of current research and practical developments, offering valuable insights for policymakers, utilities, and researchers to inform future energy planning, investment decisions, and policy formulation.