Impact of Electric Vehicle Charging Demand on a Distribution Network in South Australia

The transportation sector is one of the major contributors to carbon emissions. The most effective approach to reducing carbon emissions in this sector is the replacement of traditional fossil fuel-based vehicles with electric vehicles (EVs). Australia has set a target to achieve over 80% EV penetration by 2050. However, the surging power demand for EV charging may cause considerable stress to the power grids, particularly the distribution networks. This paper investigates the effects of EV charging demand on a relatively large size urban distribution network in South Australia, encompassing 56 distribution transformers. The loads of the network are determined from customers' smart meter data collected over a period of one year. The entire network is modelled in openDSS using actual parameters of the network. To obtain a more realistic EV charging demand, a two-stage EV battery charging model with two levels of charger power and two daily charging frequencies are used. Furthermore, the daily travel distance and home arrival/departure times of each EV are obtained through respective probability distributions derived from survey data sourced from the Victorian Integrated Survey of Travel & Activity. The study reveals that the distribution network studied has significant hosting capacity for the future uptake of EVs. These results provide valuable insights into the effective management of EV charging demands within urban distribution networks and fostering sustainable transportation systems.