Operation of distribution feeders with electric vehicle charging loads

In the next decade, electric vehicles (EV) will be heading to the road in a fast speed. Utility company would have no control over the future EV charging points or stations, and no direct control over periods and frequency of EV charging that could cause great effects to the existing distribution network operations. Distribution system operation and expansion planning would become more complicated due to the high degree of uncertainty of the EV charging demand. To mitigate the problem by better utilizing the existing distribution network, feeder reconfiguration under the distribution automation framework is proposed to deal with the problem and simulation results are presented in this paper. The test results indicate that feeder reconfiguration can be exercised to match loading patterns of different types of feeders (residential, commercial and industrial) with various charging scenarios, and consequently, reduce the impacts of EV charging and optimize the use of the existing network.