Impact of Electric Vehicle Charging Systems
on Low Voltage Distribution Networks
B Marah1 Y R Bhavanam2, G A Taylor2
Hoare Lea Consulting Engineers Brunel University London
London, UK London, UK
bmarah@theiet.org y.r.bhavanam@ieee.org
gareth.taylor@brunel.ac.uk
Abstract: Electric Vehicle Charging Systems (EVCS)
are gaining popularity in many countries, such as
the UK, due to the rise in the number of electric
vehicles and their potential impact on LV
distribution networks. Consequently, there will be
high growth in consumer demand for electrical
power and such loads are non-linear in nature. In
modern LV distribution networks, at the 11kV
voltage level for example, voltage stability, harmonic
distortions and poor power factor are major issues
for network operators. It is expected that
distribution network voltage stability should
conform to the local statutory limits whereas total
harmonic distortions and power factors should be
within network defined parameters. Therefore, it is
important to assess the impact of integrated EVCS
on distribution networks with the intention of
recommending measures to address potential
problems. This is the main aim of the research as
presented in this paper. The analysis of the total
harmonic distortion and power factor of a prototype
car park with integrated EVCS, developed for
experimental research purposes, will be reported
using the power system analysis software, Electrical
Transient Analyzer Program (ETAP).
Index Terms—Electric vehicle charging system; load
flow analysis; harmonic analysis; low voltage
distribution networks; electrical system for building
services.
I. INTRODUCTION
Electric Vehicles (EVs) are becoming popular in many
countries such as the UK. This will tend to increase in future
due to major worldwide climate change concern and the need
for environmental friendly transportations. In the coming
years utilities might expect more Electric Vehicle Charging
System (EVCS) from their consumers been connected on
their low voltage (LV) distribution network. The
characteristics of the electrical demand without EVCS as
previously known by many engineers and designers will no
longer be the same characteristics and can have adverse and
unexpected effects on the power grid and especially on the
978-1-5090-4650-8/16/$31.00 ©2016 IEEE
A O Ekwue3
Jacobs Engineering Inc.
Croydon, UK
arthur.ekwue@jacobs.com
LV network. The increase in electric vehicles will
consequently result in high demand growth for electrical
power and such loads are non-linear in nature. The non-
linearity of loads will cause harmonics, poor power factor and
voltage instability issues. Therefore, in modern LV
distribution networks, at the 11kV level for example, voltage
stability, harmonic distortions and poor power factor are
major issues for network operators [1]. Nevertheless, it is
important to assess the impact of integrated EVCS on
distribution networks with the intention of recommending
measures to address potential problems; this is the subject of
this paper. The electric vehicle terminology in this paper
represents all types of electric vehicle systems. This is to
present a common understanding and simplify the reading.
This paper is organized into seven sections: the first section
presents the introduction, the second section describes the
electric vehicle charging systems, the third section discusses
the estimated maximum demand, the fourth section discusses
the EVCS non linearity, the fifth section proposes the method
used, the sixth section discusses the scenario testing and
harmonic analysis and last section presents the conclusions.
II. ELECTRIC VEHICLE CHARGING SYSTEMS
The EVCS are designed specifically to charge electric
vehicles from different car models; this is in contrast to the
EVs which are plugged into the standard domestic socket
outlets. Electric vehicles maybe charged from 3kW (standard
charge) up to 43kW (fast charge). Manufacturers are offering
fast DC charge; the charging options are embedded into the
vehicle technology. The EVs are equipped with one or more
electric motors rated at 15-100kW. The vehicle integrated
battery pack provides power either from the charge provided
by the cable EVCS or the regenerative effect when driving
the vehicle. The battery capacity ranges from 3 to 40kW with
a voltage of 300 to 500V [2]. Single and three-phase AC
EVCS ranges from 3 to 43kW, the charger is integrated into
the vehicle and adapted to the specific characteristics of the
on board battery. However, in addition to AC EVCS, there
are also DC (CHAdeMO) EVCS ranging from 10 to 50kW,
the charger is integrated into the charging terminal external to
the vehicle [2]. Charging modes defined as 1, 2 and 3 are AC
EVCS, while mode 4 is for DC chargers which are located
outside the vehicle with specific fixed cable delivering DC
current directly to the vehicle [2]. Therefore, the power
electronics equipment involved in the charging process might
generate harmonics which will eventually lead to poor power
factor and voltage instability. EVs have the potential of
decreasing the energy shortages, and have the characteristics
of environmental protection and energy savings [3]; this is
why government and enterprises have focus on EVs.
Furthermore, there are incentives to promote more energy
efficiency such as planning permission in the UK which
requires any new build development to incorporate EVCS.
III. ESTIMATED MAXIMUM DEMAND
In the building services industry, Estimated Maximum
Demand (EMD) is carried out to get an estimate of the loads
for a particular development, the Building Services Research
and Information Association (BSRIA) Rule Of Thumb (ROT)
is used to calculate the load utilising the watt per square
meter method [4]. However, with the popularity of EVs,
EVCS engineers and designers are facing a difficult task for
estimating the required EVs load. The BSRIA ROT was not
prepared to take into account this type of load. Therefore, for
engineers and designers to accurately size EVs load a more
robust approach to the EMD will be required. The Electrical
Load Estimation (ELE) approach was used in this paper while
considering EVCS loads diversity.
IV. EVCS NON-LINEARITY
Power system loads can be categorised into two types,
linear loads and non- linear loads. In terms of linear loads, the
load is affected by either inductive or capacitive and power
loss during power transfer from the source to the load.
However, in addition to the above due to switching using
power electronics devices another term is introduced in non-
linear loads which is termed as the distortion factor.
A. Voltage Stability
Voltage stability within the LV distribution network is a
prime concern for consumers and with the advent of
emerging technology such as high penetration of EVCS in the
LV distribution network will pose a great challenge if not
mitigated. Various voltage stability issues have been reported
worldwide and the integration of these new emerging
technologies will need to be investigated and necessary
measures should be taken to avoid the LV distribution
network to collapse. The issues should be assessed by close
monitoring of the sudden change in the system loading such
as the sudden consumers behaviour of charging their EVs [5].
B. Harmonics
Harmonics is a hot topic in the electrical power systems
industries and the advent of more power electronics devices
such as EVCS for commercial, industry and domestic use,
this trend is becoming popular too for engineers and
designers in the building services industry. Power electronic
devices are the main source of harmonics and Fourier series
analysis can be used to characterize harmonic distortion using
the Total Harmonic Distortion (THD) method which is most
commonly used measures for harmonics [6]. Furthermore,
harmonics are mainly found to have adverse impact on power
system equipments such as capacitors banks, transformers,
rotating machines, protective relays and switchgears. These
devices may experience excessive heating and increased
losses [6].
C. Power Factor and Total Power Factor
Total Power Factor (PFT) is the power factor for non-linear
loads such as EVCS connected on LV distribution network.
Consideration for PFT within the LV distribution network is
vital and in addition to EVCS loads other several power
electronics equipment are also in operations within LV
distribution network and in commercial and industrial
building services installations [7]. The Power Factor (PF) for
linear load may be given as equation (1), the higher the value
of PF, higher the power delivered to the load to do the actual
work. However, when the load is non-linear, voltage is
sinusoidal and the current has harmonics, equation (1) will be
no longer valid. The PFT in that case for non-linear load is
given as equation (2), which is similar to the linear load PF
only with an addition of a second term called the distortion
factor because of its dependency on the current harmonic
distortion. The linear load PF cos(∅) is termed as
displacement PF here again simply because of its dependency
of the angle between voltage and the fundamental component
of the current [7]. Therefore, rewritten Eq. (2) the total PFT is
given as Eq. (3).
= = cos(∅) (1)
1
= cos(∅) (2)
1+
= ∗ (3)
Furthermore, one can observe from eq. (3) that whenever
the reactive power load increases the displacement angle
between voltage and fundamental component of the current
increases, which will eventually affect the overall power
factor. Nevertheless, whenever the total harmonic current
distortion increases, as a direct result the PFT decreases. [7].
V. PROPOSED METHOD
To investigate the impact of EVCS on the LV distribution
network a prototype car park was used as shown in the
computer graphic image of Fig. 1. The prototype distribution
network shown in Fig. 2 is a single line diagram
representation of Fig 1, it consists of 1 MVA ground mounted
transformer which steps down the voltage from 11kV
network to a 0.4kV supplying power to the lumped load of
370kW at assumed unity power factor (PF) and it also
supplies power to the EVCS nodes on which 30 EVCS are A. Network Model
connected rated at 11kW each, 30 EVCS was selected to
facilitate the simulation in the ETAP software. The prototype network shown in Fig. 2 on which the
lumped load and EVCS are connected may be simplified as
The LV distribution network was modelled using the the network model presented below in Fig. 3 [9].
Electrical Transient Analyzer Program (ETAP) software
package; EVCS were represented by the ETAP charger
modules with harmonic spectrum and wave form of the
standard IEEE 519 equation.

Fig 3: Simplified prototype distribution network with EVCS

Considering Fig. 3, the relationship between voltage at the

sending end ( ) and the voltage at the receiving end ( ) is
given as equation (4) and (5).

..

Fig. 1: Computer graphics image of a prototype EVCS

bus1

bus2

bus3
bus4

bus5 bus6 bus7 bus8

Fig. 2: Prototype LV network consisting of 30 EVCS points = + (R + JX) (4)

The standard IEEE 519 equation is a widely used method (R +X ) ( R +X )

for determining the total harmonics distortion; some of the = (5)
difficulties that arise with the use of the standard IEEE 519
equation are determining a suitable point of common Where is the sending end voltage
coupling (PCC) and determining a demand current at the is the receiving end voltage
design stage [8]. This is simply because a). the standard IEEE R is the line resistance
519 equation does not provide a crisp definition of the PCC. JX is the line reactance
b). the recommended definition of demand current value can I is the current flowing through the line
only be determined by measurements taken after the electrical P is the real power and Q is reactive power
installation.
 B. Simulation method using ETAP
LV distribution network was simulated with and without
EVCS using optimal techniques. The assumptions for
simulating the load with and without EVCS are as follows;
• The lump load is an aggregated load of number of
consumers.
• The Load was modelled as a lump load of 370kW
a unity power factor was assumed for lump load.
• The EVCS load was based on vendors EVCS for a
standard three phase charging rated at 11kW.
• Balanced three phase load was assumed
throughout the studies.
The model was simulated using state of the art ETAP
software package [10]. ETAP uses the Newton Raphson,
Adaptive Newton Raphson and Accelerated Gauss Seidel
algorithm to solve the load flows [10]. The Newton Raphson
algorithm was choosing in the simulation because of its
robustness to solve the load flows. The LV loads can be
represented in ETAP either by Lumped LV load elements
which can be directly connected to terminals or by partial LV
load which can be defined along distribution lines/cables. The
ETAP model provided a means of calculating not only the
active and reactive power flows, and the voltages for all
nodes, in magnitude and phase angles. It also provides the
means of obtaining the complete harmonics spectrum of all
loads including their respective values. The assumption of
three phase balance system above will allow for the system to
be represented by a single-phase equivalent circuit, which
represent only the positive sequence component of the
network. In addition this will allow the representation of the
network as a single line diagram in the ETAP software
package.
The 30 points of EVCS and the lump load of 370kW model
on the MV/LV radial distribution network (RDN) consist of
branches with only one supply points called the external grid.
The radial network supplying the EVCS and the lump load
originates from a MV/LV substation where the 11kV is step-
down to 0.4kV with the aid of MV/LV transformers and the
0.4kV voltage serves as the main source for the low voltage
RDN. Two different steps were followed to analyse the
network:
a) The lump load was simulated without the EVCS
load and result for voltage spectrum and total
harmonics distortion were observed.
b) The lump load was simulated with the EVCS load
included and results of voltage spectrum, voltage
waveform, total current harmonics distortion at the
PCC cable 2 & the transformer at two different
power factors are presented and discussed.
VI. SCENARIO TESTING AND HARMONIC ANALYSIS
Two scenarios of lumped load without EVCS and including
EVCS were evaluated at two different power factors. Based
on the ETAP harmonic load flow simulations carried out, it is
evident that the EVCS behaviour on the LV distribution
network provides more accurate information regarding the
distribution LV feeder voltage distortion and total harmonic
distortion depending on the power factor and the harmonic
order.
A. Test Case 1: EVCS are not connected to the distribution
network
In this test case a residential lumped load of 370kW is
connected to the network at unity power factor and at 0.6
assumed power factor thereafter as worst case scenario.
Supply to the EVCS car park is not connected. As the
distribution load of 370kW is assumed to have negligible
harmonic distortions. Therefore, there is no record of THDV.
B. Test Case 2: EVCS are connected to the distribution
network
In this test case 30 EVCS are connected to the network in
addition to the 370kW lump load. Here, the best and the
worst case scenarios are simulated based on the change in
power factor. This phenomenon of change in power factor is
adopted to analyse the results obtained for highly inductive
loads. On performing simulations at different power factors,
two extreme cases are discussed below.
(i) The voltage spectrum, and the voltage waveform obtained
at different buses including the point of common coupling
(PCC) (bus 4) is illustrated in Fig. 4 and Fig.5.
Fig. 4: Voltage spectrum when 0.9 PF EVCS and unity PF lumped load are
connected
Fig.5: Voltage waveform when 0.9 PF EVCS and unity PF lumped load are
connected
 The above results are obtained when 30 EVCS are (ii) The results obtained when 30 EVCS and the lumped load
connected at 0.9 PF and the lumped load is connected at unity are connected at 0.6PF to the distribution network are
PF to the distribution network. The voltage distortion at illustrated in Fig. 8 and Fig. 9.
different buses in the network is shown in Table 1.

Table 1: Change of THD in voltage (THDV)

Bus ID Voltage (kV) THDV (%)
4 0.4 5.82
5 0.4 5.97
6 0.4 6.46
7 0.4 6.46
8 0.4 5.97 Fig.8: Voltage Spectrum when 0.6 PF EVCS and0.6PF lumped load are
connected
According to IEEE recommendations, the total harmonic
distortion in voltage can be allowed up to 5% when the
voltage levels are maintained at 69kV and below. From the
above Table 1, it can be clearly observed that the THDv
exceeds the IEEE recommended limit at all the buses.
Another important observation that is made is the THDV
value at bus5 and bus8 are similar i.e. 5.97% and the value at
bus 6 and bus7 are also same i.e. 6.46%. This similarity is
because of the equal number of EVCS (3 and 12) are
connected to the respective buses. Fig.9: Voltage waveform when 0.6 PF EVCS and 0.6 PF lumped load are
The current waveform is shown in Fig.6; it is distorted as the connected
third harmonic has an individual harmonic distortion in
current (IHDi) of 16.52%, this again exceeds the The voltage distortion at different buses in the network is
recommended limit of 10%. shown in Table 2.

Table 2: Change of THD in voltage (THDV)

Bus ID Voltage (kV) THDV (%)
4 0.4 9.57
5 0.4 9.84
6 0.4 10.68
7 0.4 10.68
8 0.4 9.84

Fig 6: Current waveform at the cable 2 of PCC
The observation is also made for the current harmonics
waveform at the transformer and is illustrated in Fig.7. Here
the third harmonic does not exist because the line to line
voltages are the phasor difference between the line to neutral
voltages and they are suppressed.
The impact of change in power factor on the values of THDV
can be clearly observed from Table 2. The total harmonic
distortion in voltage exceeded the recommended limit of 5%
and also is higher than the previous case (i) recorded values.
Similar to the previous case the current waveform is shown in
Fig.10; it is distorted as the third harmonic has an individual
harmonic distortion in current (IHDi) of 15.95%, this again
exceeds the recommended limit of 10%. However, this
distortion value is smaller when compared with the previous
case.

Fig.7: Current waveform at the transformer

Fig.10: Current waveform at the cable 2 of PCC

 The third harmonic in the current waveform of the
transformer is also zero as in the previous case and is
illustrated in the Fig. 11.
Fig.11: Current waveform at the transformer
From both the sub cases in Test case 2, it is observed that
the impact of EVCS on the LV distribution network in terms
of voltage THDV is not as evident as the fundamental current
distortions on the system. Furthermore, by considering the
non-linearity of EVCS of LV loads, it is possible to identify
the weakest areas of the radial distribution network such an
approach assists in addressing the voltage instability, poor
power factor and fundamental current distortion issues by
installing reactive compensating devices for voltage
instability, power factor correction modules for poor power
factor corrections and active harmonics filters for
fundamental current distortions at appropriate locations to
improve the radial distribution network system parameters.
The information obtained from the integrated car park with
EVCS and lump load of 370kW serving other consumers load
radial LV distribution network provide remarkable insights
for future system conditions for planners and operators. For
example, planners and operators can assess the risk associated
with poor power factor, voltage instability and total
harmonics distortions of the relevant LV distribution network.
VII. CONCLUSION
The impact of EVCS has been investigated and result
obtained show that the 30 EVCS car park connected to the
electrical LV distribution network has an adverse impact on
the overall network due to voltage instability, fundamental
current distortions and poor power factor induced by the
EVCS. Therefore, a mitigation of these factors should be
prime concern in the LV distribution Network as poor power
factor will increase current in the lines, harmonics will
deteriorate distribution equipment and voltage instability is
major concern for consumers. Utilities should closely monitor
sales for plug-in hybrid and all-electric vehicles mainly for
their potential impacts on the LV distribution network.
Further analysis should be carried out to determine how long
the existing LV distribution network infrastructure can
withstand the EVs growth in the coming years? Should there
be capacity upgrades? Consumers behaviour should also be
monitored how they recharge vehicles, is there something to
be done to encourage consumers to charge certain periods of
the day by introducing time of use (ToU) tariffs.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The authors are grateful to Hoare Lea Consulting Engineers
and Brunel University London for providing the facilities
used for this Study.
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