Impact of EV Charging Stations in Power Grids in Italy and its Mitigation Mechanisms

TL;DR

This paper examines how electric vehicle charging stations affect Italian power grids, focusing on voltage and load issues, and proposes mitigation strategies to address these challenges.

Contribution

It introduces a detailed analysis of EV charging impacts on Italian distribution networks and presents a mitigation mechanism validated on a realistic grid model.

Findings

Increased peak load and voltage drops due to EV charging stations.

Mitigation mechanism effectively reduces voltage instability and transformer loading.

Impacts are significant but manageable with proposed strategies.

Abstract

Global warming leads the world to think of a different way of transportation: avoiding internal combustion engines and electrifying the transportation sector. With a high penetration of electric vehicle (EV) charging stations on an existing power distribution network, the impact may be consistent. The loads of the fast-charging stations would potentially result in increased peak load demand, reduced reserve margins, voltage instability, and reliability problems. The degrading performance of the power system due to the negative impact of the EV charging stations can even lead to penalties to be paid by the distribution system operator (DSO). This paper: i) investigates the impact of the \ac{ev} charging station on the distribution network for what concerns voltage drop on MV feeders and loading of transformers in primary substations, and ii) proposes a mitigation mechanism. A realistic typical Italian grid has been used to assess the impact of EV charging stations and to validate the mitigation mechanism.