Optimal Allocation of EV Battery Chargers for Distribution System Loss Minimization

Widely available, well-planned, and efficient charging stations (CSs) are vital for developing electric vehicles (EVs) acceptance among the customers and accommodating the consistently increasing EVs penetration. Inappropriate placement of CSs may adversely affect the distribution system in terms of losses, thermal loading, and power quality, increasing operating costs, etc. A CS does not continuously operate at its full capacity, and therefore, the unused capacity of CS can be used to provide reactive power support. The paper proposes the utilization of unused EV chargers as static synchronous compensators (STATCOM) to enhance system performance. This paper aims to optimally locate the EV CSs with the objective of system power loss minimization utilizing unused chargers as STATCOMs. To evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed approach, two different studies are conducted. The first case deals with the planning stage to find optimal bus locations for CSs. The second case conducts the operational performance in which an optimal power flow study is performed with the different number of available unused chargers at random locations within the optimally selected CSs. The proposed work is validated on the modified IEEE-33 bus radial distribution system.