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

在过去的几年里，人们对温室气体排放及其对全球变暖的影响的环境担忧有所增加。大部分排放是由在内燃机中使用化石燃料的车辆造成的。这些担忧导致许多环保活动人士在各种省级和联邦激励措施的支持下，倡导插电式电动汽车(EVS)。这些车辆可以使用储存在电池组中的电力而不是燃料，并且可以从电网充电。这些车辆的运营成本较低，空气污染和温室气体排放极少或根本没有[1，2]。此外，使用电动汽车还可以提高电网的效率、稳定性和可靠性[3]。 Veridian Connections是一家当地的配电公用事业公司，为大多伦多地区(GTA)的11.7万多户住宅和商业客户提供服务。Verdian一直是电动汽车的长期倡导者，在其服务区部署了一些充电站作为试点计划。根据这些充电站的初始数据，Verdian越来越意识到和担心电动汽车将对其配电网络产生的影响：为电动汽车充电的额外电力需求，加上家庭和企业的初始负荷，可能导致电网中电力变压器的温度飙升，从而缩短它们的使用寿命。然而，这些结果取决于充电曲线、电动汽车普及率、驾驶模式和车辆充电时间[4]。尽管以目前的电动汽车采用率来看，对 目前的电网，包括Verdian在内的当地分销公司的长期规划和部署方法，需要使用各种可能的方案进行研究和分析。为了解决这一问题，Verdian联系了Pazzi博士，以帮助开发一个分析模拟框架，使Verdian能够研究电动汽车负载对Verdian配电网络的潜在影响。帕齐博士是网络模拟方面的专家，对车辆网络的机动性模型和性能评估有着丰富的知识。

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.