A strategic approach to the placement of PV-integrated EV charging stations for enhancing the distribution network performance

Electric vehicles (EVs) are pivotal in future transportation due to their energy efficiency and environmental sustainability. However, their stochastic load characteristics on the radial distribution network (RDN) pose challenges such as power quality issues and increased network losses. This paper proposes an approach to strategically deploy EV charging stations (EVCS) integrated with photovoltaic (PV) units in RDN. The main objective is to reduce real power loss and enhance the reliability indices. The scenarios that include and exclude PV units have been considered to analyze the impact of introducing PV in the RDN with different EVCS loads. The capacity of the PV unit has also been optimized in this work. The proposed methodology has been assessed by using the IEEE 69 bus RDN. The IEEE 69 bus RDN has been divided into four zones and each zone consists of one EVCS and one PV to ensure widespread charging facilities and improve the network performance. The backward forward sweep power flow technique has been applied to perform the analysis by considering the variable parameters of the electrical system. The issues have been framed as an optimization task and tackled by applying the symbiotic organisms search technique. The outcomes have been compared with Grey Wolf Optimizer, particle swarm optimization (PSO), and whale optimization algorithm (WOA) to validate the effectiveness of the optimal planning to allocate the EVCS and PV units. The methodology is validated through multiscenario optimization on the IEEE 69-bus system and a case study-based static and dynamic simulation on the IEEE 13-bus feeder. These simulations, conducted using MATLAB and OpenDSS, confirm both the steady-state accuracy and the real-time operational feasibility of the proposed planning strategy.