Impact Assessment of Electrical Vehicles on Main Grid and Optimal Charging Station Infrastructure Strategy

Abstract

United nations have set sustainable cities and communities as a leading goal to protect the environment globally. The world’s transportation system has been shifting from conventional fuel vehicles to Electric Vehicles (EVs) to avoid greenhouse gas emissions. The Pakistan government has developed an EV policy that aims to shift maximum transport to EVs as the air quality index (AQI) of metropolitan cities has reached the highest AQI due to uncontrollable automotive gas emissions. The increase in EV sales and subsequent installation of EV charging stations may pose many problems to the existing power system. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the effects of electric vehicle charging on grid networks of Pakistan by creating charging profiles and propose an effective solar PV based hybrid generation charging station infrastructure with complete economic analysis using HOMER Grid software. Two charging profiles are developed, one using the SOC-based automated charging while the other profile is developed based on the desire of the EV owner using Python and HOMER Grid Software. The study concludes that EVs should be charged during the daytime with solar PV-based Level 3 charging as this system has lowest Net Present cost i.e., USD 2.88 million, and has the lowest CO2 emissions. It is not feasible to install Level 3 charging station without supplement source such as solar distributed generation because charging station consumption reaches 1.58 GWh/yr. without using solar PV integration that will impact the grid.