Flexible hosting capacity: Integrating electric vehicles, photovoltaics, and battery energy storage into distribution grid planning in New England

Transportation electrification and the rapid deployment of distributed energy resources (DERs), including photovoltaics and battery energy storage systems, are transforming distribution grid operations. Traditional static hosting capacity assessments often fail to capture the dynamic, stochastic behavior of high DER penetrations, particularly when electric vehicles are integrated. This study applies a dynamic hosting capacity framework to a representative New England feeder using time-series simulations across five DER scenarios: baseline, unmanaged, time-of-use pricing, DER management systems (DERMS), and DERMS + vehicle-to-grid (V2G). Results reveal that unmanaged DERs more than double the factor of accelerated aging (FAA) in 18% of transformers and cause feeder voltage violations in 6.7% of operating hours. In contrast, DERMS coordination reduces voltage violations by 93% and FAA by over 50%. Hosting capacity increases from 25% under unmanaged conditions to 60% with DERMS + V2G. Dynamic hosting margin analysis indicates operational headroom rising from 18% (unmanaged) to over 40% (DERMS + V2G), with voltage regulator tap changes falling by 38% and reverse power flow events falling by 67%. These findings demonstrate that active coordination and V2G integration can substantially expand DER hosting capacity and enhance grid resilience without immediate infrastructure upgrades.