Electric Vehicle Charging on Residential Distribution Systems: Impacts and Mitigations

This paper aims to understand, identify, and mitigate the impacts of residential electric vehicle (EV) charging on distribution system voltages. A thorough literature review on the impacts of residential EV charging is presented, followed by a proposed method for evaluating the impacts of EV loads on the distribution system voltage quality. Practical solutions to mitigate EV load impacts are discussed as well, including infrastructural changes and indirect controlled charging with time-of-use (TOU) pricing. An optimal TOU schedule is also presented, with the aim of maximizing both customer and utility benefits. This paper also presents a discussion on implementing smart charging algorithms to directly control EV charging rates and EV charging starting times. Finally, a controlled charging algorithm is proposed to improve the voltage quality at the EV load locations while avoiding customer inconvenience. The proposed method significantly decreases the impacts of EV load charging on system peak load demand and feeder voltages.