Abstract
It is important to understand the effect of increasing electric vehicles (EV) penetrations on the existing electricity transmission infrastructure and to find ways to mitigate it. While, the easiest solution is to opt for equipment upgrades, the potential for reducing overloading, in terms of voltage drops, and line loading by way of optimization of the locations at which EVs can charge, is significant. To investigate this, a heuristic optimization approach is proposed to optimize EV charging locations within one feeder, while minimizing nodal voltage drops, cable loading and overall cable losses. The optimization approach is compared to typical unoptimized results of a monte-carlo analysis. The results show a reduction in peak line loading in a typical benchmark 0.4 kV by up to 10%. Further results show an increase in voltage available at different nodes by up to 7 V in the worst case and 1.5 V on average. Optimization for a reduction in transmission losses shows insignificant savings for subsequent simulation. These optimization methods may allow for the introduction of spatial pricing across multiple nodes within a low voltage network, to allow for an electricity price for EVs independent of temporal pricing models already in place, to reflect the individual impact of EVs charging at different nodes across the network.
Highlights
Electricity in a modern society is typically generated from different generation technologies like hydro-power stations, nuclear power stations, combustion-based power stations running on fossil fuels or biomass, as well as renewable sources such as solar photovoltaic, concentrated solar, as well as wind based power systems
The simulation results suggest that electric vehicles (EV) will add a significant amount of loading and voltage drops when added randomly to low-voltage networks over time
This can be mitigated by exploiting the inherent structure of any low voltage (LV) network, where differences in cable sizes and household load profiles can be used to rearrange vehicles, or limit access of some vehicles at some locations, in order to reduce overall negative overloading effects in the network
Summary
Electricity in a modern society is typically generated from different generation technologies like hydro-power stations, nuclear power stations, combustion-based power stations running on fossil fuels or biomass, as well as renewable sources such as solar photovoltaic, concentrated solar, as well as wind based power systems If these generation units are of a commercial scale, they typically produce alternating current flows at voltage levels of 0.4/0.44, 6.6, 10.5, 11, 13.8, 15.75, 21 and 33 kV or higher [1]. EVs typically require upwards of 50 kWh of energy for a full charge of their batteries, which requires as much as 10 h of charging at a typical household plug in point [2] To reduce this charging time, fast chargers are increasingly being adopted, which charge with a power greater than 7 kW, a number higher than the average instantaneous peak power consumption of typical European houses [3]. This is projected to lead to significant overloading in the LV network, and will require upgrades to the cable infrastructure
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