Enhanced Electric Vehicle Integration in the UK Low Voltage Networks with Distributed Phase Shifting Control

Eduardo Vega-Fuentes, Mouloud Denai

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

8 Citations (Scopus)
134 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

Electric vehicles (EV) have gained global attention due to increasing oil prices and rising concerns about transportation-related urban air pollution and climate change. While mass adoption of EVs has several economic and environmental benefits, large-scale deployment of EVs on the low-voltage (LV) urban distribution networks will also result in technical challenges. This paper proposes a simple and easy to implement single-phase EV charging coordination strategy with three-phase network supply, in which chargers connect EVs to the less loaded phase of their feeder at the beginning of the charging process. Hence, network unbalance is mitigated and, as a result, EV hosting capacity is increased. A new concept, called Maximum EV Hosting Capacity (HC max) of low voltage distribution networks, is introduced to objectively assess and quantify the enhancement that the proposed phase-shifting strategy could bring to distribution networks. The resulting performance improvement has been demonstrated over three real UK residential networks through a comprehensive Monte Carlo simulation study using Matlab and OpenDSS tools. With the same EV penetration level, the under-voltage probability was reduced in the first network from 100% to 54% and in the second network from 100% to 48%. Furthermore, percentage voltage unbalance factors in the networks were successfully restored to their original values before any EV connection.

Original languageEnglish
Article number8684842
Pages (from-to)46796-46807
Number of pages12
JournalIEEE Access
Volume7
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 9 Apr 2019

Keywords

  • Charging management
  • electric vehicles
  • low voltage networks
  • voltage unbalance

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Enhanced Electric Vehicle Integration in the UK Low Voltage Networks with Distributed Phase Shifting Control'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this