Impacts of high penetration level of fully electric vehicles charging loads on the thermal ageing of power transformers

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Abstract This paper develops a methodology to determine the impacts of high penetration level of fully electric vehicles (FEVs) charging loads on the thermal ageing of power distribution transformers. The method proposed in this paper is stochastically formulated by modelling the transformer life consumption due to FEVs charging loads as a function of ambient temperature, start time of FEVs charging, initial state-of-charge and charging modes. FEVs loads are modelled using the results from an analytical solution that predicts a cluster of FEVs chargers. A UK generic LV distribution network model and real load demand data are used to simulate FEVs’ impacts on the thermal ageing of LV power distribution transformers. Results show that the ambient temperature, FEVs penetration level, and start time of charging are the main factors that affect the transformer life expectancy. It was concluded that the smart charging scenario generally shows the best outcome from the loss of life reduction perspective. Meanwhile, public charging which shifts a large percentage of charging load to commercial and industrial areas can significantly alleviate the residential transformer loading thus has little impact on the loss of life of transformers. The proposed method in this paper can be easily applied to the determination of the optimum charging time as a function of existing loads, and ambient temperature.