The impact of plug-in electric vehicles on local distribution grid

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Over the last few years, there have been an increase in the environmental concerns over greenhouse emission and its effect on global warming. Much of the emission is attributed to vehicles that use fossil fuel in their internal combustion engines. These concerns have led many environmental activists, empowered by various provincial and federal incentives, to advocate for Plug-in Electrical Vehicles (EVs). These vehicles can use electricity stored in battery packs instead of fuel, and can be recharged from the electrical grid. These vehicles have lower cost for operation, with minimal or no air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions [1,2]. In addition, using EV can also improve the efficiency, stability, and reliability of the grid [3]. Veridian Connections is a local distribution utility company serving more than 117,000 residential and business customers in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA). Veridian has been a long-term advocate of EV with a number of charging stations deployed in its service area in a pilot program. Based on the initial numbers from these charging stations, Veridian is becoming more aware and concerned about the impact EV will have on its distribution network: the additional demand on electricity to charge EVs, added to the initial load from homes and businesses, can result in an upsurge in the temperature of electric transformers in the grid, thereby reducing their lifetime. These results are, however, reliant on charging profile, EV penetration rate, driving pattern, and time of charging of vehicles [4]. Although with the current adoption rate of EV, the impact is still minimum on the current grid, the long term planning and deployment approaches for local distribution companies, including Veridian, requires research and analysis using various possible scenarios. In order to address this problem, Veridian reached out to Dr. Pazzi for help developping an analytical simulation framework to allow Veridian study the potential impact of EV loads on Veridian's distribution network. Dr. Pazzi is an expert in network simulation, with an extensive knowledge of mobility models and performance evaluation of vehicular networks.