This study proposes a method of coordinating electric vehicle charging to reduce losses in a distribution system, using only knowledge of the phase that each charger is connected to. Reducing network losses cuts costs and can be achieved through demand response mechanisms. However, directly minimising losses requires accurate values of the line impedances, which can be difficult to obtain. Flattening load over time and balancing load across phases have both been proposed as alternate solutions which indirectly reduce losses. Here, the practical differences between load flattening and explicitly minimising losses are quantified using simulations of residential charging in European style, three-phase distribution networks. Then, a new smart charging strategy, which incorporates phase balancing as a secondary objective to load flattening, is proposed. This requires only the knowledge of the phase that each load is on and achieves 30–70% of the potential reduction in losses.

References

1. 1)
  - 35. Gill, P.E., Wong, E.: ‘Methods for convex and general quadratic programming’, Math. Program. Comput., 2015, 7, (1), pp. 71–112.
2. 2)
  - 23. Mets, K., Verschueren, T., Haerick, W., et al: ‘Optimizing smart energy control strategies for plug-in hybrid electric vehicle charging’. 2010 IEEE/IFIP IEEE Network Operations and Management Symp. Workshops (NOMS Wksps), Osaka, Japan, 2010, pp. 293–299.
3. 3)
  - 3. Crozier, C., Apostolopoulou, D., McCulloch, M.: ‘Mitigating the impact of personal vehicle electrification: a power generation perspective’, Energy. Policy, 2018, 118, (1), pp. 474–481.
4. 4)
  - 21. Nafisi, H., Askarian Abyaneh, H., Abedi, M.: ‘Energy loss minimization using PHEVs as distributed active and reactive power resources: a convex quadratic local optimal solution’, Int. Trans. Electr. Energy Syst., 2016, 26, (6), pp. 1287–1302.
5. 5)
  - 26. Verzijlbergh, R.A., Grond, M.O.W., Lukszo, Z., et al: ‘Network impacts and cost savings of controlled EV charging’, IEEE Trans. Smart Grid, 2012, 3, (3), pp. 1203–1212.
6. 6)
  - 19. Helseth, A.: ‘A linear optimal power flow model considering nodal distribution of losses’. 9th Int. Conf. on the European Energy Market (EEM), Florence, Italy, 2012.
7. 7)
  - 13. Masoum, A., Deilami, S., Moses, P., et al: ‘Smart load management of plug-in electric vehicles in distribution and residential networks with charging stations for peak shaving and loss minimisation considering voltage regulation’, IET Gener. Transm. Distrib., 2011, 5, (8), p. 877.
8. 8)
  - 27. Sortomme, E., Hindi, M.M., MacPherson, S.D.J., et al: ‘Coordinated charging of plug-in hybrid electric vehicles to minimize distribution system losses’, IEEE Trans. Smart Grid, 2011, 2, (1), pp. 186–193.
9. 9)
  - 14. Clement-Nyns, K., Haesen, E., Driesen, J.: ‘Coordinated charging of multiple plug-in hybrid electric vehicles in residential distribution grids’. Power Systems Conf. and Exposition, Seattle, WA, USA, 2009.
10. 10)
  - 29. Weckx, S., Driesen, J.: ‘Load balancing with EV chargers and PV inverters in unbalanced distribution grids’, IEEE Trans. Sustain. Energy, 2015, 6, (2), pp. 635–643.
11. 11)
  - 24. Gan, L., Topcu, U., Low, S.H.: ‘Optimal decentralized protocol for electric vehicle charging’, IEEE Trans. Power Syst., 2013, 28, (2), pp. 940–951.
12. 12)
  - 8. Gómez, J.C., Morcos, M.M.: ‘Impact of EV battery chargers on the power quality of distribution systems’, IEEE Trans. Power Deliv., 2003, 18, (3), pp. 975–981.
13. 13)
  - 37. Dungan, R., McGranaghan, M., Santoso, S., et al: ‘Electrical power systems quality’ (MH Engineering, NY, USA, 1996), ch. 2.
14. 14)
  - 32. Liao, C., Yang, B.: ‘Phases-controlled coordinated charging method for electric vehicles’, CES Trans. Electr. Mach. Syst., 2018, 2, (1), pp. 3–12.
15. 15)
  - 20. Balram, P., Tuan, L.A., Tjernberg, L.B.: ‘Modeling of regulating power market based on AC optimal power flow considering losses and electric vehicles’. IEEE ISGT Asia, Bangalore, India, 2013.
16. 16)
  - 18. Urquhart, A.J., Thomson, M.: ‘Impacts of demand data time resolution on estimates of distribution system energy losses’, IEEE Trans. Power Syst., 2014, 30, (3), pp. 1483–1491.
17. 17)
  - 40. ‘My electric avenue’. Available at http://myelectricavenue.info/.
18. 18)
  - 11. Qiao, Z., Yang, J.: ‘Low-voltage distribution network reconfiguration considering high penetration of electric vehicles: a UK case study’. The 5th IEEE Int. Conf. on Renewable Energy Research and Applications (ICRERA 2016), Birmingham, UK, March 2017, pp. 708–713.
19. 19)
  - 36. Vandenberghe, L., Anderson, M., Dahl, J.: ‘Cvxopt’. Available at https://http://cvxopt.org.
20. 20)
  - 6. Shafiee, S., Fotuhi-Firuzabad, M., Rastegar, M.: ‘Investigating the impacts of plug-in hybrid electric vehicles on power distribution systems’, IEEE Trans. Smart Grid, 2013, 4, (3), pp. 1351–1360.
21. 21)
  - 9. Ramesh, L., Chowdhury, S., Chowdhury, S., et al: ‘Minimization of power loss in distribution networks by different techniques’, Int. J. Electr. Electron. Eng., 2009, 3, (4), pp. 661–667.
22. 22)
  - 33. Bernstein, A., Wang, C., Dall'Anese, E., et al: ‘Load-flow in multiphase distribution networks: existence, uniqueness, non-singularity, and linear models’, IEEE Trans. Power Syst., 2018, 33, (6), pp. 5832–5843.
23. 23)
  - 16. Farasat, M., Arabali, A.: ‘Voltage and power control for minimising converter and distribution losses in autonomous microgrids’, IET Gener. Transm. Distrib., 2015, 9, (13), pp. 1614–1620.
24. 24)
  - 31. Gou, F., Yang, J., Zang, T.: ‘Ordered charging strategy for electric vehicles based on load balancing’. EI2 2017 – Proc. 2017 IEEE Conf. on Energy Internet and Energy System Integration, Beijing, China, 2018, vol. 2018-January, pp. 1–5.
25. 25)
  - 10. Kalambe, S., Agnihotri, G.: ‘Loss minimization techniques used in distribution network: bibliographical survey’, Renew. Sustain. Energy Rev., 2014, 29, (C), pp. 184–200.
26. 26)
  - 4. Ramachandran, B., Geng, A.: ‘Smart coordination approach for power management and loss minimization in distribution networks with PEV penetration based on real time pricing’, in ‘Plug in electric vehicles in smart grids’ (Springer, Switzerland, 2015), pp. 25–58.
27. 27)
  - 2. UK: ‘Future energy scenarios’. Tech. Rep., National Grid, 2018.
28. 28)
  - 12. Meulen, M.V.D., Bosma, W., Hagemans, R., et al: ‘Reconfiguring electricity distribution networks to minimize power loss: NP-hardness and efficient approximation algorithms’. Ph.D. dissertation, Radboud University, 2015.
29. 29)
  - 22. Benetti, G., Delfanti, M., Facchinetti, T., et al: ‘Real-time modeling and control of electric vehicles charging processes’, IEEE Trans. Smart Grid, 2015, 6, (3), pp. 1375–1385.
30. 30)
  - 34. E.P.R. Institute: ‘The open distribution system simulator (opendss)’, 2018. Available at http://smartgrid.epri.com/SimulationTool.aspx.
31. 31)
  - 28. Kong, W., Ma, K., Wu, Q.: ‘Three-phase power imbalance decomposition into systematic imbalance and random imbalance’, IEEE Trans. Power Syst., 2018, 33, (3), pp. 3001–3012.
32. 32)
  - 17. Castillo, A., Gayme, D.F.: ‘Evaluating the effects of real power losses in optimal power flow based storage integration’, IEEE Trans. Control Netw. Syst., 2017, 5, (3), pp. 1132–1145.
33. 33)
  - 15. Nafisi, H., Agah, S.M.M., Abyaneh, H.A., et al: ‘Two-stage optimization method for energy loss minimization in microgrid based on smart power management scheme of PHEVs’, IEEE Trans. Smart Grid, 2016, 7, (3), pp. 1268–1276.
34. 34)
  - 39. Northern PowerGrid: ‘Customer-led network revolution’, 2014. Available at http://www.networkrevolution.co.uk/.
35. 35)
  - 41. Ochoa, L.: ‘Dissemination document ‘low voltage networks models and low carbon technology profiles’. Tech. Rep., University of Manchester, 2015.
36. 36)
  - 25. Nourai, A., Kogan, V.I., Schafer, C.M.: ‘Load leveling reduces T & D line losses’, IEEE Trans. Power Deliv., 2008, 23, (1), pp. 2168–2173.
37. 37)
  - 5. Northern Powergrid: ‘Strategy for losses’. Tech. Rep., Northern Powergrid, July 2015.
38. 38)
  - 7. Tawancy, H.M., Hassan, M.: ‘On the degradation mechanism of low-voltage underground cable with poly(vinyl chloride) insulation’, J. Mater. Eng. Perform., 2016, 25, pp. 2288–2295.
39. 39)
  - 1. Society of Motor Manufacturers & Traders: ‘Electric vehicle registration data’. Available at https://www.smmt.co.uk/, accessed: 2019-04-05.
40. 40)
  - 30. Lico, P., Marinelli, M., Knezović, K., et al: ‘Phase balancing by means of electric vehicles single-phase connection shifting in a low voltage danish grid’. Proc. of the Universities Power Engineering Conf., Stoke-on-Trent, UK, 2015, vol. 2015-November.
41. 41)
  - 38. Grainger, J., Stevenson, W.: ‘Power system analysis’ (McGraw-Hill, NY, USA, 1994), ch. 11.

Coordinated electric vehicle charging to reduce losses without network impedances

References

Related content