Multi-objective Dynamic Phase re-configuration Technique to Mitigate the Unbalance Due to Penetration of Electric Vehicles

Abstract

Electric vehicle (EV) penetration is rapidly increasing due to reduced battery cost, government policy to maintain carbon emission lower than the currently planned level, avoiding higher fuel taxes and subsidies for transport and electricity production. The uncertainty of EV penetration and uneven distribution makes the distribution grid imbalance. Several researchers have assessed the impact of EV penetration on voltage and power quality. Moreover, a few research work has been done for mitigating the unbalance in an unbalanced distribution grid with higher EV penetration till now. This paper proposes a method to mitigate voltage unbalance, the neutral current at the supporting feeder and minimize the re-phasing cost by optimizing load distribution among phases. This study will solve the multi-objective problem using Particle Swarm optimization algorithm (PSO). Finally, the efficacy of the proposed method is evaluated by applying to a distribution grid. It is found that the proposed method can reduce the voltage unbalance below 2% at each node and reduce the neutral current from 48.69 A to 8.92 A with minimum re-phasing cost.