Power Quality of Electric Vehicle Charging Stations and Optimal Placement in ‎the Distribution Network

Due to the presence of power electronic converters in electric vehicle battery chargers, the electrical power drawn from the distribution system has severe distortions which pose many problems to the power quality. Herein, the impact of chargers in terms of indicators, e.g., penetration level, battery state of charge, type of charging stations, the time of connection of chargers to the network, and the location of charging stations was comprehensively studied on a sample distribution network. The effect of these chargers was investigated based on power quality parameters, e.g., total harmonic distortion (THD) and voltage profile, and the effect of each indicator on these parameters was determined. To minimize the effects of the chargers, an IEEE 33-bus distribution sample network was optimized with the objective functions of voltage drop and THD. Based on this optimization algorithm, the installation placement and the power capacity of the charging stations were obtained to achieve the lowest voltage drop and THD.