Enhanced Electric Vehicle Integration in the UK Low Voltage Networks with Distributed Phase Shifting Control

Electric vehicles (EV) have gained global attention due to increasing oil prices and rising concerns about transportation-related urban air pollution and climate change. While mass adoption of EVs has several economic and environmental benefits, large-scale deployment of EVs on the low-voltage (LV) urban distribution networks will also result in technical challenges. This paper proposes a simple and easy to implement single-phase EV charging coordination strategy with three-phase network supply, in which chargers connect EVs to the less loaded phase of their feeder at the beginning of the charging process. Hence, network unbalance is mitigated and, as a result, EV hosting capacity is increased. A new concept, called Maximum EV Hosting Capacity (HC max) of low voltage distribution networks, is introduced to objectively assess and quantify the enhancement that the proposed phase-shifting strategy could bring to distribution networks. The resulting performance improvement has been demonstrated over three real UK residential networks through a comprehensive Monte Carlo simulation study using Matlab and OpenDSS tools. With the same EV penetration level, the under-voltage probability was reduced in the first network from 100% to 54% and in the second network from 100% to 48%. Furthermore, percentage voltage unbalance factors in the networks were successfully restored to their original values before any EV connection.Peer reviewedFinal Accepted Versio

Review of trends and targets of complex systems for power system optimization

Optimization systems (OSs) allow operators of electrical power systems (PS) to optimally operate PSs and to also create optimal PS development plans. The inclusion of OSs in the PS is a big trend nowadays, and the demand for PS optimization tools and PS-OSs experts is growing. The aim of this review is to define the current dynamics and trends in PS optimization research and to present several papers that clearly and comprehensively describe PS OSs with characteristics corresponding to the identified current main trends in this research area. The current dynamics and trends of the research area were defined on the basis of the results of an analysis of the database of 255 PS-OS-presenting papers published from December 2015 to July 2019. Eleven main characteristics of the current PS OSs were identified. The results of the statistical analyses give four characteristics of PS OSs which are currently the most frequently presented in research papers: OSs for minimizing the price of electricity/OSs reducing PS operation costs, OSs for optimizing the operation of renewable energy sources, OSs for regulating the power consumption during the optimization process, and OSs for regulating the energy storage systems operation during the optimization process. Finally, individual identified characteristics of the current PS OSs are briefly described. In the analysis, all PS OSs presented in the observed time period were analyzed regardless of the part of the PS for which the operation was optimized by the PS OS, the voltage level of the optimized PS part, or the optimization goal of the PS OS.Web of Science135art. no. 107

Optimized Solar Photovoltaic Generation in a Real Local Distribution Network

Remarkable penetration of renewable energy in electric networks, despite its valuable opportunities, such as power loss reduction and loadability improvements, has raised concerns for system operators. Such huge penetration can lead to a violation of the grid requirements, such as voltage and current limits and reverse power flow. Optimal placement and sizing of Distributed Generation (DG) are one of the best ways to strengthen the efficiency of the power systems. This paper builds a simulation model for the local distribution network based on obtained load profiles, GIS information, solar insolation, feeder and voltage settings, and define the optimization problem of solar PVDG installation to determine the optimal siting and sizing for different penetration levels with different objective functions. The objective functions include voltage profile improvement and energy loss minimization and the considered constraints include the physical distribution network constraints (AC power flow), the PV capacity constraint, and the voltage and reverse power flow constraints.Comment: To be published (Accepted) in: Proceedings of the IEEE PES Innovative Smart Grid Technologies Conference (ISGT), Washington D.C., USA, 201

An Adaptive Overcurrent Coordination Scheme to Improve Relay Sensitivity and Overcome Drawbacks due to Distributed Generation in Smart Grids

Distributed Generation (DG) brought new challenges for protection engineers since standard relay settings of traditional system may no longer function properly under increasing presence of DG. The extreme case is coordination loss between primary and backup relays. The directional overcurrent relay (DOCR) which is the most implemented protective device in the electrical network also suffers performance degradation in presence of DG. Therefore, this paper proposes the mitigation of DG impact on DOCR coordination employing adaptive protection scheme (APS) using differential evolution algorithm (DE) while improving overall sensitivity of relays . The impacts of DG prior and after the application of APS are presented based on interconnected 6 bus and IEEE 14 bus system. As a consequence, general sensitivity improvement and mitigation scheme is proposed