Investigation of ToU and V2G to Accommodate High EV Penetrations in Power Distribution Grid

Electric utilities and Distribution System Operators (DSO) are becoming more apprehensive about the potentially negative effects of uncontrolled Electric Vehicle (EV) charging on their distribution grids. However, implementing appropriate measures such as Time-of-Use (ToU) tariff and Vehicle-to-Grid (V2G) capability can help mitigate these negative effects and accommodate more EV integration into the power distribution grid. This paper investigates the effectiveness of utilizing ToU and V2G as controlled mechanisms from a DSO standpoint to facilitate high EV penetrations. The study utilized the open-source Dynamic Phasor Simulator (DPSim) as a real-time power flow simulator and incorporated the Power Management algorithm while employing the lightweight Message Queuing Telemetry Transport (MQTT) protocol as the hardware-in-the-loop communication interface. The study concludes that the implementation of controlled mechanisms can reduce the impacts of voltage quality without necessitating infrastructure upgrades or causing inconvenience to EV users.