IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON SMART GRID, VOL. 5, NO.
4, JULY 2014
Impact of Electric Vehicle On-Board Single-Phase
Charging Strategies on a Flemish Residential Grid
Niels Leemput, Student Member, IEEE, Frederik Geth, Student Member, IEEE,
Juan Van Roy, Student Member, IEEE, Annelies Delnooz, Jeroen Büscher, Member, IEEE, and
Johan Driesen, Senior Member, IEEE
Abstract—This paper quantifies the impact of single-phase
on-board charging strategies for electric vehicles (EVs) in a
case study of a heavily loaded unbalanced Flemish three-phase
low-voltage residential grid. Voltage droop charging and EV-based
peak shaving, which do not need communication with the dis-
tribution grid, are modeled and the results are compared. The
grid voltages are analyzed according to the probabilistic and
deterministic limits of the EN50160 standard, for a 100% EV
penetration rate. The impact on the EV user comfort is evaluated
in terms of charging time and electrically driven distances. The
chosen voltage droop charging eliminates critical voltages below
0.85 pu and reduces voltage unbalance, with a limited impact
on the total charging time. EV-based peak shaving makes the
grid fully compliant with EN50160 and avoids the need for an
infrastructure upgrade. The electrically driven distances are not
influenced by the charging strategies.
Index Terms—Coordinated charging, electric vehicles, smart
grids.
I. INTRODUCTION
E LECTRIC vehicles (EVs) are introduced into the market
nowadays. The electric powertrain allows to reduce the
consumption of greenhouse gas emitting fossil fuels [1]. Fur-
thermore, the absence of tailpipe emissions reduces the local
concentrations of pollutants harmful to human health [1].
Both battery electric vehicles (BEVs) and plug-in hybrid
electric vehicles (PHEVs) are charged through the electric
power system. An increasing number of EVs increasingly
impact the power system, e.g., peak power demand, load
profile and voltage magnitude deviations [2]. The residential
low-voltage grid impact may be significant, due to the simul-
taneity between the residential power peak and the plugging
in of EVs when arriving at home, which starts the charging
process for uncoordinated charging [3].
There is a certain flexibility for EV charging, due to the long
standstill time and the relatively low distances driven [4], which
Manuscript received June 28, 2013; revised November 07, 2013, January 07,
2014; accepted February 20, 2014. Date of current version June 18, 2014.This
work was supported by the European Institute of Innovation and Technology
through the EV City project organized by the KIC InnoEnergy. The work of N.
Leemput was supported by a Ph.D. grant from the Institute for the Promotion
of Innovation through Science and Technology in Flanders (IWT-Vlaanderen).
The work of J. Van Roy was supported by a VITO doctoral scholarship. KU
Leuven and VITO are partners of EnergyVille, 3600 Genk, Belgium. Paper no.
TSG-00481-2013.
N. Leemput, F. Geth, J. Van Roy, J. Büscher, and J. Driesen are with the De-
partment of Electrical Engineering (ESAT), Division Electa, KU Leuven, 3001
Leuven, Belgium (e-mail: niels.leemput@esat.kuleuven.be).
A. Delnooz is with Flemish Institute for Technological Research (VITO),
2400 Mol, Belgium.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TSG.2014.2307897
1949-3053 © 2014 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission.
See http://www.ieee.org/publications_standards/publications/rights/index.html for more information.
1815
are determined by the departure time of the next trip and re-
quired range. This flexibility can be used to include an addi-
tional objective besides the mobility objective, to determine a
unique charging pattern.
The scope of this paper is to assess the residential grid impact
of EV charging strategies. An unbalanced three-phase load
flow analysis is performed. A realistic residential feeder with
real household power profiles is modeled. Uncontrolled and
on-board controlled charging strategies are compared.
The paper is structured as follows. Section II discusses the
literature on coordinated charging, the resulting impact on the
residential distribution grid and locally controlled EV charging
strategies. In Section III, the scenario and modeling are dis-
cussed. The results are discussed in Section IV, followed by the
conclusions in Section V.
II. BACKGROUND
A. Coordinated Charging
An extensive amount of research has already been performed
on coordinated charging of EVs [5]. Typically, it is concluded
that coordinated charging strategies can reduce the impact on
the power system.
Charging can be coordinated to integrate a higher share of
intermittent renewable energy in the power system, thereby re-
ducing the emissions related to electric power production [6]–[8].
Also, the charging flexibility of EVs can be used to provide grid
services, e.g., congestion management [9], frequency regulation
[10] and imbalance reduction [11]. The charging flexibility can
also be used to minimize the charging cost, by anticipating on the
variable electricity prices on the wholesale markets [12]–[14].
These charging strategies require a substantial penetration
rate on the regional/national level to have a noticeable impact,
which would justify the required investments in smart grid in-
frastructure [15]. Therefore, widespread coordination is not ex-
pected to occur in the near-term future. Furthermore, high local
EV concentrations, which impacts the local distribution grid,
may occur before a significant penetration rate occurs on the
regional/national level. Because it is expected that EVs will
mainly be charged at home, the residential grid impact can be
substantial in areas with many EVs.
B. Residential Grid Impact
Residential EV charging impacts different aspects of the dis-
tribution grid: power profile, voltage magnitude deviations, and
voltage unbalance. The impact of coordinated charging on these
aspects are discussed in this section.
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1) Power Profile: EV charging influences the power profile
of the distribution system [3], which impacts the aging of trans-
formers and cables. The aging is a strong function of the hot
spot temperature, which depends on the transformer and cable
conductor currents [16], [17]. Thermal effects significantly in-
fluence the technical lifetime of transformers and cables caused
by the accelerated aging of the insulation material.
EV charging could be controlled in a way to smoothen out the
power profile, e.g., peak shaving on grid level [18], [19]. Also,
the power peak could be taken into account as a constraint in
cost-minimizing coordination strategies [20], [21]. These pro-
posed strategies require communication between the EVs and
the distribution grid. Thus, in case of malicious or absent com-
munication, these strategies are ineffective.
2) Voltage Magnitude Profile: The distribution voltage
magnitude should stay within a regulated range, to ensure
that electric appliances are operated in a safe and satisfactory
manner [22]. The European EN50160 standard specifies that
the 10 min mean rms voltage deviation should not exceed
10%, measured on a weekly base [23]. For under voltage, a
wider range is allowed in the measurement procedure: 15%
to 10% for 5% of time.
The impact of uncoordinated EV charging on the voltage
magnitude is discussed in the literature [24]. Peak shaving, as
discussed in the previous subsection, reduces the simultaneity of
household and EV power demand, which has a beneficial impact
on the voltage deviations [18]. The reduction of voltage devia-
tions could also be considered as a coordination objective [3].
However, both strategies require communication, which makes
them ineffective in case of absent or malicious coordination.
Furthermore, the nodal voltage is influenced by the power pro-
file of the individual households, which is highly stochastic and
unpredictable [22]. Therefore, many of the proposed algorithms
are used for benchmarking.
3) Voltage Unbalance Profile: The uneven distribution of
single-phase loads [25] and asymmetric conductor config-
urations [22] lead to unequal voltage drops in the different
phases of the distribution grid. An excessively high unbalance
negatively impacts the power system, as well as electric and
electronic end-user appliances [22]. In European standards, the
voltage unbalance factor VUF is defined as the magnitude of
the ratio of the negative sequence voltage to the posi-
tive sequence voltage . The
EN50160 standard specifies that the 10-min mean rms value of
the VUF should be below 2% for 95% of time, measured on a
weekly base [23].
The impact of EV charging on the VUF is not to be ne-
glected, as discussed in [26]. For three-phase EV charging, the
power offtake from each phase could be varied to compensate
voltage unbalance. Methods being proposed for the injection of
power by three-phase grid inverters of photovoltaic installations
[27], [28], could be adapted for three-phase EV charging. For
single-phase EV charging, the charger has no local three-phase
voltage measurement. Therefore, it has no information on the
VUF, only on the voltage magnitude of the phase to which the
EV is connected.
C. Locally Controlled EV Charging
Several local parameters can be used to control the EV
charging process without the need for communication between
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON SMART GRID, VOL. 5, NO. 4, JULY 2014
the EV and the distribution grid infrastructure, e.g., the voltage
magnitude and the EV departure time.
If the voltage magnitude is above 0.90 pu and below 1.10 pu,
the value is within the normal operating conditions [23]. If EV
chargers are given responsibility to support voltage standards,
charging is stopped below 0.85 pu, which is the lower voltage
limit in the measurement procedure of [23]. Therefore, control
of the EV charger power is to take place between 0.85 and 0.90
pu. Voltage droop charging, as discussed in [29] and [30], can
be used for this purpose.
The EV user could inform the EV charger about the next
departure time through an on-board communication interface.
Then, the EV charging power rating can be reduced based on the
required charging energy and the time until the next departure.
As a result, the EV charger power peak is reduced, while still
fully charging the EV before the next departure. To the author’s
knowledge, the combination of such an EV-based peak shaving
strategy and voltage droop enabled chargers has not been dis-
cussed in the literature.
Voltage dependent charging and EV-based peak shaving are
used separately and combined in this paper. The impact on the
EV user comfort is discussed in terms of charge duration in-
crease and electrically driven distances for a fleet with differ-
entiated vehicle categories. The commonly used single-phase
charging power rating of 3.3 kW is assumed. A typical Flemish
urban low voltage grid model is used. The voltage constraints
are evaluated according to the probabilistic and deterministic
limits of the EN50160 standard, for a 100% EV penetration rate.
The analysis is performed for a half-year simulation horizon
with a 1-min time resolution.
III. SCENARIO AND MODELING
A. Residential Low-Voltage Grid
The feeder topology is based upon a real urban LV feeder
with a TT grounding arrangement located in Flanders, Belgium.
The information is provided by a Flemish DSO, a partner in the
EVCity project [31]. The 39 residential loads are grid con-
nected through 29 nodes , as illustrated in Fig. 1. The distance
between these nodes and the transformer varies between 310
and 550 m. All households are assumed to have a single-phase
grid connection between one of the three phases
and the common neutral conductor ; the nominal neutral-to-
phase voltage is 230 V.
Cable parameters are taken from the design specifications of
the standard for underground distribution cables, NBN C33-322
[32]. Cable type EIAJB 1 kV mm is used for
the main feeder. Cable type EXVB 1 kV 4 16 mm is used to
connect the household supply terminals with the main feeder,
except at node 28, where cable type EXVB 1 kV 4 35 mm
is used, because of the high load that is connected there. These
cables are between 5.3 and 14.8 m in length.
The main feeder is connected to a 400 kVA transformer, to-
gether with five parallel feeders that have a length of 250 m,
which are modeled in a simplified manner here. The cable type
is the same as for the main feeder, and the load connected to the
end of each of the feeders is equal to the aggregated load of the
main feeder. In this way, the 400-kVA transformer is serving
the equivalent of 234 residential loads, which is in line with
the DSO’s deployment strategy. The transformer impedance of
is derived from [33].
LEEMPUT et al.: IMPACT OF EV ON-BOARD SINGLE-PHASE CHARGING STRATEGIES
Fig. 1. Schematic overview of the residential low voltage feeder topology with 29 connection nodes serving 39 households .
B. Residential Load and Generation
A stochastically representative set of 39 single-phase
Flemish household electric power consumption profiles was
sampled in 2008 [34], with a 15-min time resolution. The
profiles are self-identified in the survey as within an urban
environment. Only active power consumption was measured,
so reactive power consumption is neglected in the simulations.
The households are alternatingly connected between the three
phases and the neutral conductor.
The total annual residential photovoltaic (PV) energy produc-
tion in Flanders amounts to 10% of the total annual residential
energy consumption [35]. Because these installations are not
uniformly distributed, clusters with a high PV penetration rate
occur. Therefore, a PV penetration rate of 35% is assumed here:
14 houses are assigned a PV installation and their location is il-
lustrated in Fig. 1.
The PV power profiles are scaled versions of a measurement
on an installation of the KU Leuven, with a 15-min resolution.
The profile is scaled to match the annual energy production to
the annual household energy consumption at the selected loca-
tions, considering a maximum inverter power rating of 5 kVA
imposed by regulations [36].
C. EV Charging Load
The set of EV charging profiles are based on Flemish
mobility behavior and are generated with a 1-min time resolu-
tion , as discussed in [4]. Three sub-models are used to create
the charging load: a mobility behavior model, a battery model,
and a charge behavior model. Each household is as-
signed an . According to IEC 61851 [40], the current and voltage rating
1) Mobility Behavior Model: The mobility profiles of each
EV is created with the mobility simulation tool discussed in
[4]. This tool uses statistical data on Flemish transportation be-
havior, to create a realistic driving pattern for each vehicle. For
each vehicle, it is known when it is driving, standing still, and
also where it is when standing still: at home, at work or at an-
other location.
The diversity of vehicle types and vehicle fuels within the
fleet, and the resulting variations in specific power consump-
tion and yearly driven distances are taken into account. Three
vehicle types are modeled: subcompact, midsize and large ve-
hicles. The specific power consumption results of [4] are in-
creased with 15%, to take into account the impact of external
factors, e.g., ambient temperature, wind, altitude, road grade,
and surface [37].
The resulting specific power consumption for each vehicle
category is respectively 0.181, 0.213, and 0.302 kWh/km. Given
the average vehicle speed in Flanders of 42 km/h, the average
battery discharging power for each vehicle category is, re-
spectively, 7.6, 8.9 and 12.7 kW during driving.
1817
2) Battery Model: The battery model from [38] is used. The
evolution of the energy content and state of charge at
each 1-min time step is calculated as follows:
(1)
(2)
with the self-discharge rate of the battery during each time
step , which is chosen at 3% of the nominal battery capacity
per month. The nominal battery capacities for the three
vehicle categories are respectively 10, 15, and 20 kWh. and
are the charging and discharging power during each time
step . Obviously, an EV cannot be simultaneously charging
and discharging .
The charging and discharging efficiency and are 95%,
which are typical values for lithium-ion batteries. The usable
battery capacity is limited to 80% of the nominal capacity
, to extend the battery cycle life
[39]. The EVs are modeled as extended range electric vehicles
(EREVs), in which the combustion engine is only used when
the battery is depleted. Therefore, even if the battery is depleted,
all mobility requirements are met.
3) Charging Model: It is assumed that Mode 3 charging in-
frastructure is used [40], which is directly connected to the grid
through a dedicated power circuit. The connection between the
charging infrastructure and the EV occurs through a specific
plug/socket, that also handles the communication on the allowed
charge current rating. Also circuit braking, fault current and
over-current protection are located in the off-board charging in-
frastructure.
for Mode 3 charging range from a single-phase 16 A/230 V con-
nection up to a three-phase 63 A/400 V connection. The com-
monly used charging power rating of 3.3 kW is assumed here.
This rating can be delivered through a single-phase grid con-
nection, which results in a charging current of 16 A at 90% of
in continental Europe [23].
The EVs are assumed to be grid-connected at home and at the
workplace, whenever they are standing still at these locations
for more than 15 min. For shorter standstill times, it is assumed
that the EV user will not make the effort to connect the vehicle
to the grid, because of the limited SOC increase during such a
short time span.
D. Controlled Charging Cases
Different charging cases are discussed here, as summarized
in Table I. These cases are compared to the case without EVs,
i.e., case 0.
1) Case 1: The first case represents uncoordinated charging.
The EVs start charging immediately when they are grid con-
nected for more than 15 min, until they are fully charged or
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TABLE I
SUMMARY OF THE CHARGING CASES
Fig. 2. Piece-wise linear voltage droop charging behavior .
leave for the next trip. Thus, the charging flexibility is com-
pletely used to maximize the user comfort, because the battery
is charged as soon as possible.
In case 1a, the charging power is equal to 3.3 kW, the
battery charger has as a constant power behavior under all cir-
cumstances. In case 1b voltage droop charging is used [29]. The
charging power depends on the voltage magnitude at the phase
and connection node where the EV is grid connected:
(3)
where is the voltage magnitude at phase of grid con-
nection node on time step . The range between the deter-
ministic and probabilistic voltage limit of the EN50160 stan-
dard measurement procedure is fully used here to adapt the EV
charging power. linearly increases from 0 to 1 at
voltage magnitudes between 0.85 and 0.9 pu, as illustrated in
Fig. 2. This will increase the charging time when the voltage
magnitude drops below 0.9 pu.
EV chargers make use of an active rectifier, which measures
the voltage waveform to control the charging current waveform.
The charging power can be adapted within a wide range, which
is required to stay below the maximum charging current that is
allowed by the Mode 3 charging infrastructure. Thus, voltage
droop could be implemented in current Mode 3 compliant EV
chargers.
2) Case 2: For this case, the charging power is dependent
on the time until the next departure and . The
charging power set point is equal to the minimum power
that is needed to get the EV battery fully charged during . to the residential load and generation profiles.
To avoid a too low efficiency at partial load, the charging
power set point lower limit is 25% of 3.3 kW, i.e., 825 W:
(4)
(5)
e.g., if an EV is standing still for 10 h until the next departure,
and 10 kWh is needed to recharge the battery, is 1 kW.
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON SMART GRID, VOL. 5, NO. 4, JULY 2014
In case 2a, a constant power behavior is used .
Case 2b uses a voltage droop behavior to determine , as illus-
trated in Fig. 2. The droop behavior determines the maximum
charging power
(6)
(7)
e.g., if the voltage magnitude is 0.875 pu, the maximum
charging power is limited to 1.65 kW, i.e., 50% of 3.3 kW.
If the charging strategy already limits the charging power
to 1 kW, the charging process will not be influenced. If the
voltage droop influences the charging process, the charging
power will be adapted in the following time step to get the EV
fully charged by the next departure, given the charging power
limit of 3.3 kW.
E. Load Flow Analysis
A three-phase unbalanced load flow algorithm is imple-
mented in MATLAB. Unbalanced loads are taken into account,
as well as the resulting zero-point shift due to currents running
through the common neutral conductor . The backward–for-
ward sweep technique is used, because of the radial layout of
the grid [42].
The problem is converged when the worst time step voltage
error is below 0.1 V. A supplementary convergence crite-
rion is used for the EV loads: the worst time step power error
should be below 33 W, which is 1% of the charging power
rating. All loads are modeled with unity power factor. The loads
are modeled as constant power loads for case 0, 1a and 2a. For
case 1b and 2b, the voltage dependent EV charging behavior, as
illustrated in Fig. 2, is implemented within the backward–for-
ward sweep.
F. Simulation Specifications
The simulations are conducted for 25 randomly selected
weeks out of the proposed one-year scenario, resulting in a
number of time steps . For each 1 min time step
, the evolution of the SOC is calculated as formulated in (1)
and (2).
The resulting residential EV charging profile is added to the
residential load and generation profile at the respective grid
node. These load and generation profiles are kept constant
during their 15-min period. The resulting nodal load profiles
are used to conduct the load flow simulation. EVs are also
charged at the workplace, but this is not within this residential
grid. Therefore, the workplace charging profiles are not added
IV. RESULTS
A. Charging Behavior
The EV charging simultaneity is defined as the number of
EVs that are charging simultaneously at the feeder, on which
each of the 39 households has an EV. The simultaneity is quan-
tified in Table II for the different cases. For all cases, the max-
imum charging simultaneity is below 30 EVs, and even below
20 EVs for case 1a and 1b. During more than 50% of time, at
LEEMPUT et al.: IMPACT OF EV ON-BOARD SINGLE-PHASE CHARGING STRATEGIES 1819

TABLE II
EV CHARGING SIMULTANEITY

Fig. 4. Charging simultaneity for case 1a (black curve) and 1b (gray area).

TABLE III 1b than for case 1a. This is due to the charging time increase
EV CHARGING TIME
that occurs if the droop behavior is active, which compensates
for the charging power reduction.
For three households , each on a different
phase, the voltage magnitude and EV charging profile are illus-
trated in Fig. 5 for case 1a (black curve) and 1b (gray area). The
EVs at and reduce their charging power in case
1b, because the voltage magnitude goes below 0.9 pu. The re-
sulting charging time increase and the substantial impact on the
voltage magnitude can be observed.
The voltage droop behavior of all EVs that face voltage mag-
nitudes below 0.9 pu during charging influences all nodal volt-
ages on the feeder. This can be seen at , where the voltage
profile changes, while the charging profile of the EVs is iden-
tical. Also, there are changes in the voltage profile when the EV
is not charging, due to the voltage droop behavior of other EVs
that are charging.
Fig. 3. Duration increase per EV of cumulative charge events for case 1b versus
case 1a. C. Power Profile
The maximum transformer load , delivered energy ,
least 3 EVs are charging in case 1a and 1b, and 9 EVs in case 2a
and grid losses are summarized in Table IV, for both posi-
and 2b. The higher simultaneity for case 2a and 2b is due to the
tive (pos) and negative (neg) values. The negative power values
spreading of the charging process over the full standstill time at
occurs at times when instantaneous PV power production ex-
home.
ceeds power consumption in the LV grid. This is due to the
The impact of the different charging cases on the total EV
difference in timing of PV power production and household
charging time is summarized in Table III. The charging time
power consumption. The load on each conductor is defined
increase in case 1b versus 1a is less than 5% for all vehicles
as follows:
in the fleet. The charging time for case 2a and 2b are identical
and substantially longer than for case 1a and 1b, since both fully (8)
make use of the standstill time at home.
The cumulative charging time increase for each charge event
per EV, as illustrated in Fig. 3, remains below 7.2, 16.2, 30.8, where and are the active and reactive grid power
and 72.8% for, respectively, 85, 90, 95, and 100% of all charging consumption for each conductor on each time step. is the
actions. This illustrates the significant impact of voltage droop
residential load, including PV power production, is the
behavior on the charge duration at some moments, but a limited
active power consumption of an EV during charging.
impact most of the times.
is maximum of the sum of the load on each conductor
The minimum, mean and maximum utility factor (UF, the
. and are de-
fraction of distance driven on battery energy) in the fleet are,
fined as follows:
respectively, 57.4, 70.8, and 85.5%. The UF remains identical
in all cases for each EV in the fleet. This indicates that there is
sufficient charging flexibility to implement voltage dependent
charging behavior, even in this constrained grid situation.
B. Voltage Droop Charging Behavior (9)
To illustrate the voltage droop charging behavior, a four hour (10)
period between 22.30 and 02.30 on one specific day is discussed
in detail for case 1a and 1b.
The charging simultaneity for case 1a (black curve) and 1b where only contains the energy the households effectively
(gray area) are illustrated in Fig. 4. The simultaneity varies be- consume (pos) and produce (neg), the grid losses are not of in-
tween 6 and 18 EVs for both cases, and is slightly higher for case terest for the residential end user.
1820
Fig. 5. Voltage magnitude profiles and charging power profiles at for case 1a (black curve) and case 1b (gray area).
TABLE IV
IMPACT OF THE CHARGING CASES ON POWER PROFILE
Compared to case 0, is more than doubled for case 1a
and 1b. As a result, the transformer is loaded above its nominal
rating if case 1 charging is applied. The increase is significantly
less for case 2a and 2b. Because is, respectively, at 93.8
and 91.0% of the transformer rating for case 2a and 2b, a trans-
former upgrade is not required. When comparing case 1a and
1b, it can be concluded that the presence of voltage droop be-
havior only has a limited impact on peak power.
approximately doubles due to EV charging. The differ-
ence in power production and consumption between case 1 and
2 is due to a higher self-consumption for case 2, because of the
increased simultaneity between EV charging and PV power pro-
duction. However, the limited difference indicates that the si-
multaneity remains low.
for case 1 is approximately the fourfold compared to
case 0, due to the increase in peak power and energy consump-
tion. for case 2 is approximately 25% lower than for case
1 due to the lower peak power values.
D. Voltage Magnitude Profile
The impact of EV charging on the voltage magnitude is sum-
marized in Table V. The voltage magnitude stays below 1.1 pu
for all cases. Voltage magnitude compliance with EN50160 is
calculated as follows:
for % of all min intervals of any week
(11)
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON SMART GRID, VOL. 5, NO. 4, JULY 2014
TABLE V
IMPACT OF THE CHARGING CASES ON VOLTAGE MAGNITUDE
(12)
Case 0 is compliant with EN50160, the minimum voltage
is just below 0.9 pu. Voltages below 0.9 pu occur for only
0.2% of time in one week at one location.
For case 1a, the grid is not compliant with the EN50160 stan-
dard. is 0.75 pu and the voltage magnitude goes below
0.85 pu in each of the 25 weeks of the simulation, affecting 37
households.
For case 1b, is above 0.85 pu. However, the grid is still
not compliant with EN50160. The voltage magnitude is below
0.9 pu in 8 weeks of the simulation for up to 10.4% of time per
week, affecting 13 households.
For case 2a and 2b, the voltage magnitude is compliant with
EN50160. is above 0.85 pu and the voltage magnitude is
between 0.9 and 0.85 pu for a maximum of 1.4% of time per
week.
E. Voltage Unbalance Factor
Voltage unbalance compliance with EN50160 is calculated as
follows:
%
for % of all 10 min intervals of any week (14)
where is the voltage unbalance factor at node on time
step . The results are summarized in Table VI. The VUF is
LEEMPUT et al.: IMPACT OF EV ON-BOARD SINGLE-PHASE CHARGING STRATEGIES
TABLE VI
IMPACT OF THE CHARGING CASES ON VUF
compliant with EN50160 when there are no EVs charging, as
the maximum value is below 2%.
For case 1a, VUF is above 2% for up to 7.7% of time per
week, in 7 of the 25 weeks. This affects 24 of the 39 households,
in up to 7 weeks for individual households. For case 1b, VUF
values are compliant with the standard. VUF only exceeds 2%
for a maximum of 4.5% of time per week. Thus, voltage droop
behavior substantially reduces VUF.
For both case 2a and 2b, the VUF exceeds 2% for a maximum
of 0.3% of time per week, which is compliant with EN50160.
This is significantly lower than for case 1a and 1b, due to the
increased charging simultaneity and lower peak power values.
V. CONCLUSION
The residential grid impact of EV charging can be substan-
tially reduced with on-board strategies that do not require com-
munication between the EVs and the distribution grid. Voltage
droop charging and on-board peak shaving both can be imple-
mented within the EVs.
Voltage droop charging eliminates EV-induced voltage mag-
nitudes below 0.85 pu. VUF values higher than 2% occur for
less than 5% of time per week. However, because the voltage
magnitude is below 0.9 pu for more than 5% of time per week,
the grid is not compliant with the EN50160 standard. On-board
peak shaving makes the grid fully compliant with EN50160, and
the peak power remains below the transformer rating. As a re-
sult, there is no need for grid infrastructure reinforcements.
For all cases, the voltage droop behavior reduces EV-induced
voltage deviations and voltage unbalance. The combination of
both strategies enables the integration of EVs prior to the wide-
spread availability of coordination. Once available, EV-based
peak shaving can be bypassed, while the voltage droop enabled
charger provides an effective fallback mechanism in case of ma-
licious coordination.
The electrically driven fraction remains identical to uncon-
trolled charging for both strategies. However, the impact on the
charging time is different. For voltage droop charging, there is
a significant impact at some moments, but a limited impact at
most of the time. Therefore, the total charging time is only im-
pacted marginally. For EV-based peak shaving, the charging
time increases significantly because the full standstill time at
home and at the workplace is used.
Droop parameters can be optimized to support other objec-
tives, e.g., decreasing the grid losses and the frequency of oc-
currence of voltages below 0.9 pu. Methodologies to determine
the optimal configuration and behavior of DERs [43] could be
adapted for this problem.
Future work will include other impact factors for the EV user,
e.g., to quantify the loss in comfort of non-fully charged EVs,
as UF and the charging time increase may not reflect this com-
1821
pletely. Furthermore, the functionality of Mode 3 charging in-
frastructure is to be explored, e.g., an adaptation of the charging
power by the infrastructure.
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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON SMART GRID, VOL. 5, NO. 4, JULY 2014
Niels Leemput (S’11) received the M.Sc. degree in
electrical engineering, with specialization in energy,
from the KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium, in 2010. He
is currently pursuing the Ph.D. degree at KU Leuven.
Currently, he is working as a Research Assistant
with the division ESAT-ELECT. He is funded by
IWT-Vlaanderen and is enrolled in the KIC InnoEn-
ergy Ph.D. School. His research interests include the
grid integration of charging infrastructure for electric
vehicles, and the grid-coupling of electric vehicles.
Frederik Geth (S’10) received the M.Sc. degree in
electrical engineering from the KU Leuven, Leuven,
Belgium, in 2009. He is currenlty pursuing the Ph.D.
degree at KU Leuven.
Currently, he is working as a Research Assistant
with the division ESAT-ELECTA. He is enrolled in
the KIC InnoEnergy Ph.D. School. His research in-
terests include optimal storage integration in distri-
bution grids, batteries for electric vehicles, and con-
trolling the impact of the charging currents of electric
vehicles on the grid.
Juan Van Roy (S’09) received the M.Sc. degree in
electrical engineering, with specialization in energy,
from the KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium, in 2010. He
is currently pursuing the Ph.D. degree at KU Leuven.
Currently, he is working as a Research Assistant
with the division ESAT-ELECT . He is funded
through doctoral scholarship of the Flemish Institute
for Technological Research (VITO) and is enrolled
in the KIC InnoEnergy Ph.D. School. His research
interests include integrating and controlling the
charging of electric vehicles and their interaction
with thermal energy flows in buildings.
Annelies Delnooz received the M.Sc. degree in ap-
plied economics, specialization policy management,
from Hasselt University, Diepenbeek, Belgium, in
2010.
Since November 2010, she has been active as a
Researcher at the Flemish Institute for Technological
Research (VITO), Mol, Belgium. She is mainly in-
volved in research with regard to the energy markets
in an international context and elaborating business
case calculations regarding VPPs, electric vehicles,
and other smart grid applications.
Jeroen Büscher (M’11) received the M.Sc. degree
from the University of Ghent, Ghent, Belgium,
in 2005 and Ph.D. degree in physics from the
Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (KU Leuven),
Leuven, Belgium, in 2010.
In 2011, he joined the ESAT-ELECTA division of
the KU Leuven as a Postdoctoral Researcher. His in-
terests include the smart grid integration of charging
infrastructure for electric vehicles and the modeling
of electrical energy systems.
Johan Driesen (S’93–M’97–SM’12) received the
M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering
from the KU Leuven, Belgium, in 1996 and 2000,
respectively.
Currently, he is a Professor with the KU Leuven
and teaches power electronics and electric drives. In
2000, he was with the Imperial College of Science,
Technology and Medicine, London, U.K. In 2002,
he was with the University of California, Berkeley.
Currently, he conducts research on distributed gener-
ation, power electronics, and its applications.