Power quality issues into a Danish low-voltage grid with electric vehicles

Abstract

An increased interest on electric vehicles (EVs) and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) is dealing with their introduction into low voltage (LV) distribution grids. Lately, analysis on power quality issues has received attention when considering EVs as additional load. The charging of EVs is expected without a centralized coordination in the first years, therefore a study on voltage variations and loading of LV grids is needed to estimate the immediate impact by EVs. In this work, the modeling and simulation of a Danish residential LV grid is conducted considering the two scenarios of dumb charging and overnight charging. The effect of different shares of EVs on voltage variations and transformer loading is assessed and analyzed. Results have shown that if single-phase, 16 A charging is employed, the actual LV grid would withstand the contingency of up to 30–40% of EVs charging overnight.