Mitigation of Electric Vehicles Charging Impacts on Distribution Network with Photovoltaic Generation

Abstract

There is continuous and fast increase in electric vehicles (EVs) sales recently. These EVs are charged from the electric power system, usually at distribution networks which presents a challenge to distribution networks. This paper presents a study for mitigating the impacts of uncontrolled EV charging on low voltage (LV) distribution network supplying commercial consumers. For this purpose, decentralized photovoltaic (PV) generation is used. This study takes into account the current status of the distribution networks where there is no communication infrastructure or advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) devices present in the grid, neither is there a control center. Therefore, there is no coordination between the EV charging and PV generation. The transformer loading, cable loading, voltage profile at the furthest point from the transformer and daily energy losses are investigated for three operation scenarios. The first scenario is the original state (base case) of the LV distribution network which supplies only commercial consumers, and neither EVs nor PV generation is connected to it. In the second scenario EVs are connected to the network for charging. In the third scenario EVs are connected to the network for charging and PV generation is available. The study is performed using DIgSILENT Power Factory software. 24-hour time series simulations are executed with a load flow every 15 minutes. The results demonstrate that the decentralized PV generation can alleviate the impacts of uncontrolled EV charging on commercial LV distribution network.