Mitigating Adverse Impacts of Increased Electric Vehicle Charging on Distribution Transformers

Abstract

As the world is transitioning to electric vehicles (EVs), the existing power grids are facing several challenges. In particular, the additional charging power demand may repeatedly overload the traditionally-sized distribution transformers and adversely impact their operational life. To address this challenge, this paper proposes an EV-based reactive power compensation strategy for transformer overloading mitigation. Specifically, a low-bandwidth centralized recursive controller is proposed to determine a set point for the EV’s onboard charger’s reactive power. Importantly, the proposed strategy is practically implementable in existing distribution grids as it does not rely on smart grid infrastructure and is stable under potential communication delays and partial failures. This paper discusses the controller’s structure, design, and stability in detail. The proposed solution is tested with a realistic secondary distribution system considering four different EV charging scenarios with both Level 1 and Level 2 residential EV charging. Specifically, IEEE Standard C57.91-2011 is used to quantify the impact of EV charging on the transformer’s life. It is shown that with the proposed method, transformer overloading is significantly reduced, and the transformer’s life improves by an average of 47% over a year in all four scenarios.