Distribution System Reconfiguration Optimization for EV and Renewable DG Integration

The global trend is pushing towards the adoption of renewable energy sources (RES) as a means to mitigate the adverse effects of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. This has led to a rise in electric vehicle (EV) production and increased distributed generation (DG). The increased units of EVs and DGs creates stress on the distribution network, resulting in augmented power losses and voltage deviations across the system. An approach for proper system integration is to reconfigure the distribution network by opening and closing the switches to optimize the flow of power. To better understand the DGs power generation and EV behavior, an ARMA model and EV charging/discharging model are implemented respectively to formulate the problem parameters. The optimization method is tested on a real 13.8kV, 134-bus distribution network fed by PV and wind generation units. The optimization provides not only the optimal status of the existing switches, but it also places new sectionalizing switches within the distribution network along with their associated switching actions to further improve the system performance. An unbalanced three-phase load flow analysis is used to calculate the distribution system losses before and after the optimization. The results show that the proposed reconfiguration optimization for EV and renewable DG integration reduces the system losses by a total of 53.05% over a 24hr simulation period.