A framework for assessing the impact of plug-in electric vehicle to distribution systems

The popularity of plug-in electric vehicles (PEV) is growing quickly and is expected to take a large share in the future automobile market. The integration of PEV may significantly impact electric systems, especially distribution systems. Various PEV impact studies have been undertaken. However, due to the great uncertainty in many crucial assumptions and parameters, it is essential to have a framework that can accommodate various assumptions and can be easily adopted by utilities for their own studies to make mitigation plans. This paper proposes a PEV impact assessment framework, which utilizes cluster analysis to select a small set of representative circuits, carries out the impact study via Monte Carlo simulation on the representative circuits, and then extrapolates the feeder level impact to the system level. The impact study algorithm takes in assumed PEV charging scenarios and run load flow analysis to understand various potential impacts of PEV such as equipment overloading, losses, voltage profile, etc.