A simulation approach to analyse the impacts of battery swap stations for e-motorcycles in Africa

Electric motorcycles are being introduced in some African countries to combat the negative environmental impacts from the rapid growth in the use of traditional internal combustion engine motorcycle taxis. However, the electricity systems in many of these countries are strained, with generation and/or distribution capacity at their limits, leading to regular power outages that could impact the charging of these e-motorcycles. These fragile grids may be put under further strain by additional e-motorcycle charging. Commercial motorcycle taxi drivers may not be willing to wait for extended periods to charge during their shift. The use of battery swapping stations could mitigate these issues. However, modelling of their system impacts is required to fully understand their potential. This paper presents a hybrid model to simulate the key operational processes of battery swapping stations and their energy systems, allowing various configurations and scenarios to be investigated for the specific context of e-motorcycles in Africa. The configuration parameters include the numbers of batteries and charging slots, the charging power, and the addition of solar PV and static battery energy storage capacity. Power outages can be modelled for various scenarios. A test case of a battery swap station in Nairobi, Kenya, was used to showcase and validate the model. The results demonstrated how the various sub-models performed and interacted with each other, and clearly showed what impact the chosen BSS configuration would have on the grid.