Examination of EV-grid integration using real driving and transformer loading data

The growing environmental concerns and the increase in oil prices will lead to the proliferation of electric vehicles (EVs) in the near future. The increase in the number of EVs, while providing green and inexpensive solutions to transportation needs, may cause constraints on the operation of the utility grid that should be investigated. In this paper, the real user driving information is collected from individual data tracking devices of passenger vehicle owners instead of assuming randomly distributed trip characteristics. The collected trip data are first analyzed to generate a statistical model of the trip characteristics in terms of home arrival times and state of charge (SOC) levels. The resulting model is then used to simulate and analyze the impact of EV integration in a real grid with different EV penetration levels. For this, real distribution transformer data provided by Başkent Electric Distribution Co. is used. The proposed method produces more realistic results in comparison to the studies assuming random scenarios.