Impact of Plug-In Electric Vehicles on Faulted Distribution System

Plug-in electric vehicles (PEVs) provide one of the most promising solutions to reduce NOX and SOX emissions due to conventional vehicles. However, integration of large-scale plug-in electric vehicles (PEVs) to the existing grid may introduce new challenges especially at distribution network level as the existing distribution grid was not designed to accommodate such electrical vehicle loads. Therefore, fault analysis of distribution system in the presence of PEV charging is required to assess the impact of this new type of load during fault conditions. This paper evaluates the impact of electric vehicles charging on distribution system at the fault conditions. IEEE 34 node distribution system with AC level 2 single-phase PEV charging station coupled to one of its nodes is used to investigate the effect of PEV charging on the system under balanced and unbalanced faults. The impact of PEV charging load is compared to the equivalent constant power load at main feeder and lateral, respectively, under balanced and unbalanced faults.