Power Quality Assessment in E-Bus Charging Cycle

Jonathan M. Tabora, Carlos Eduardo M.R; Thiago M. Soares, Andreia A. do Nascimento2, Ulisses J. Paixão, Maria Emília de
Lima Tostes, Ubiratan H. Bezerra, Edson Ortiz de Matos, Carminda Célia de Moura
1
Amazon Energy Efficiency Excellence Center (CEAMAZON)
2
Norte Energia S.A. (NESA)
Federal University of Pará (UFPA)
Belém, Pará, Brazil
jonathan_mt24@hotmail.com carloseduardo.pa@hotmail.com, thiagosoares@ufpa.br, AndreiaNascimento@norteenergiasa.com.br,
upaixaojr.eng@gmail.com, tostes@ufpa.br, ubiratan.fapespa@gmail.com ortiz@ufpa.br, carminda@ufpa.br,

Abstract— The growth of electric vehicles in Latin America
represents a challenge in technical terms through the charging
infrastructure, but with great ecological and development
benefits. Latin America shows to be a favorable territory for the
growth and manufacture of electric vehicles EV, in view of the
large lithium reserves existing in the region. This work analyzes
the impact of different recharging power on the power quality
through the recharging of electric buses. The results show that
the individual harmonic content increases according to the
recharging power, and especially in the final phase, for high
state of charge (SoC) of the batteries, but also that higher
recharging powers result in lower current total harmonic
distortion rates.
Keywords—Electric bus, power quality, e-bus load shape,
harmonics,
I. INTRODUCTION
Electric mobility in Latin America is still in an early stage,
but in constant growth, more than 60% of the countries have
charging infrastructure for electric vehicles [1], however with
a predominant dominance of internal combustion engines.
Despite the increase in electric vehicle sales, they only
accounted for 2.5% of global electric vehicle sales. However,
the implementation of certain policies and incentives such as
clean vehicle mandates, vehicle purchase incentives, electrical
vehicle supply equipment (EVSE), as well as electric mobility
strategies and defined emission reduction targets [2, p. 15], [3,
p. 4].
In Brazil, the transport sector accounted for around 47%
of greenhouse gas emissions of total emissions from the
energy sector in 2019 [4].The introduction and promotion of
EV can contribute to the reduction of greenhouse gas
emissions in Brazil. According to [3, p. 9], in 2018, globally
EV emitted approximately 48% less Mt CO2-eq, than the
equivalent in cars with internal combustion engines.
Electrical vehicles also present less components when
compared to internal combustion vehicles, which translates
into higher operational efficiencies. An EV converts more
Este trabalho foi desenvolvido com financiamento da Norte Energia
S.A. – NESA, como parte integrante do projeto de P&D ANEEL 07427-
0319/2019 “Sistema Inteligente de Gestão Eficiente de Mobilidade Elétrica
Multimodal”
XIV CBQEE-XXXX-XXXX-X/XX/SBQEE ©2021 http://sbqee.org.br/sbqee/
than 77% of the energy from the grid to the wheels, while
internal combustion engines convert only between 12% -30%
of the energy stored in the form of gasoline [5, p. 1].
Electric batteries continue to represent the higher cost
component in EV’s, different technologies such as Lithium
iron phosphate (LiFePO4), Lithium-nickel cobalt aluminum
(NCA), Lithium oxide cobalt (LCO), Lithium-nickel-
manganese-cobalt (NMC), Lithium-manganese spinel (LMO)
or Lithium titanate (LTO) have been used in EV’s, each with
its respective advantages and disadvantages [6].
Electric batteries can be evaluated in relation to their life
cycle and tolerance values and compared to values defined by
the U.S. Advanced Battery Consortium (USABC) [7], in the
case of LiFePo4 batteries, present in the e-buses of this study,
the literature highlights their advantages in relation to life
cycle, high power capability, stability, low toxicity, high
discharge, smooth and constant voltage profile, as well as its
main disadvantages such as its electronic conductivity which
is still unsatisfactory, and a low energy density [6], [8], [9].
Despite the environmental benefits that the insertion of
electric vehicles on a large scale can bring, its impacts on
power quality must also be analyzed. Studies analyzing the
effects of recharging electric vehicles have been presented in
[10]–[13]. The main impacts found are in the harmonic
distortion rate (THD), voltage drop in residential sectors,
detrimental effects on transformers mainly with high power
penetration [14], [15]. This work presents an analysis of the
impact of electric vehicle charging with different current
output levels on the harmonic content through experimental
measurements developed at the Federal University of Pará.
II. CHARGING INFRAESTRUCTURE
A. CEAMAZON Hybrid System
Infrastructure for the operation and research of electric
buses is composed of a hybrid system with photovoltaic and
diesel generations, storage systems, and local electricity grid,
as part of the ANEEL research and development project
(R&D) intitled: "Intelligent Efficient Management System
for Multimodal Electric Mobility", being executed by the
Amazon Energy Efficiency Excellence Center -
CEAMAZON, from the Federal University of Pará, with
funding from Norte Energia SA - NESA.
The project foresees the acquisition of two electric buses
and the construction of one electric boat, which will serve the
Fig. 1. CEAMAZON Charging Infraestructure configuration for electric buses.
B. Total Harmonic Distortion
Within the area of power quality, harmonics represent an
increasingly present disturbance in electrical systems. Large-
scale EV penetration must be analyzed according to the type
of electric vehicle, the type of AC/DC converter, as well as the
recharging power. The voltage/current total harmonic
distortion rate can be calculated in accordance with IEEE Std
519-2014, as presented in (1):
√∑ℎℎ=2
𝑚𝑎𝑥 2
𝑉ℎ
𝑇𝐻𝐷% = ∗ 100 (1)
𝑉1
Where:
𝑉ℎ is the h voltage harmonic order;
𝑉1 is the measured fundamental voltage;
ℎ𝑚𝑎𝑥 is the higher harmonic order considered.
Equation (1) shows that the total harmonic distortion rate
is inversely proportional to the fundamental component of the
voltage/current, so for higher recharge currents in EV, it is
expected a decrease in this parameter, as will be shown in the
results. The next section will show the methodology and
results used in this study to evaluate the harmonic impact of
electric vehicle charging.
III. METHODOLOGY AND RESULTS
Electric buses are recharged using EV charging mode 3,
according to the IEC 61851-1 [16, p. 61], with a dedicated
charging station. The electric bus has two LiFePO4 battery
storage systems with a capacity of 324 kWh, and a charging
transport of users of UFPA's Guamá Campus, in addition to
the installation of recharging infrastructure to supply these
units. Figure 1 presents the charging infrastructure.
power of 2x40 kW, at 380 Volts, with a maximum charging
time of between 4-5 h with type 2 charging connectors of a
maximum output of 126 A. 324 kWh LiFePO4 Battery Storage
System.
The electric charger output current can be limited
according to predefined values for EV charging, with impacts
on recharge time. For the study, three output currents were
configured in the electrical charger: 126 A, 63 A and 16.5 A.
Measurements were made in an electrical panel upstream of
the electrical charger using a quality analyzer from the
manufacturer HIOKITM, class A, model PW3198, Figure 3
shows a photograph of the measurements.
A. E-bus Charging Power Curve
The type 2 connectors have two communication pins: the
Control Pilot (CP) and the Proximity Pilot (PP) that allow the
start and finalization of the recharging process safely [17], [18,
p. 2]. Figure 2 presents the communication and power process
for the AC chargers.
Fig. 2. AC electric charger operation [18, p. 2].
Figures 3 and 4 present the charging curves obtained
through measurements made at the Amazon Energy
Efficiency Excellence Center - CEAMAZON at different
recharging powers on the e-bus.
6
 The charging curve presents the same behavior regardless
of the recharging current/power value; starting with a high
current demand that translates into the presented power curve,
then this power is kept constant until reaching 80-90% of the
battery State of Charge (SoC), at that battery charge level, the
charging speed decreases to prevent the battery cells from
overheating due to their high SoC, as can be seen in the final
phase of the curve.

Fig. 5. Voltage (up) and Current (down) waveforms for 10.5 kW Power
charging.

Fig. 3. E-bus charging cycle power for 63 Amps output level.

Fig. 6. Voltage and Current THD for 10.5 kW Power Charging.

The neutral conductor on the other hand presented the

highest values of harmonic distortion with percentages that
exceed 140%, as shown in Figure 7. The individual
Fig. 4. E-bus charging cycle power for 126 Amps output level. percentages of 5th and 7th harmonic are presented in Table I
and compared with IEEE 519:2014 standards and PRODIST
Once 100% SoC is reached, a signal is sent from the EV Module 8, at the end of the section.
to the EVSE to end the recharge and deactivate the safety
interlocks is sent, which allows the disconnection of the
charger.
B. Total Harmonic Distortion THD – 10.5 kW.
The recharge current/power does not impact on the power
factor, remaining unitary during all the current values
analyzed. The waveform, on the other hand, presents
significant differences between the current values analyzed,
Figure 5 presents the voltage and current waveforms observed
for a load power of 10.5 kW.
Despite the harmonic distortion observed in the
sinewaves, the percentage of voltage THD does not exceed
2% while the current THD presents values higher than 8%, as
observed in Figure 6. The highest harmonic percentages found
are the 5th and 7th voltage and current harmonics orders, as will
be presented later. Fig. 7. Neutral Current THD for 10.5 kW Power Charging.

6
C. Total Harmonic Distortion THD – 41.5 kW.
The increase in recharging current/power results in a much
less distorted waveform, as can be seen in Figure 8. The
decrease in distortion can also be observed in Figure 9, where
the current THD passes from 9 % to about 6%. It can be
observed that at the end of the charge cycle the current THD
increases, this mainly because the current/power is decreased
when the E-bus batteries achieves 80-90% of SoC, as was
presented in section III.A.
Fig. 8. Voltage (up) and Current (down) waveforms for 41.5 kW Power
charging.
Fig. 9. Voltage and Current THD for 41.5 kW Power Charging.
The harmonic content in the current of the neutral
conductor is not affected by the current / power delivered, as
can be seen in Figure 10, where the values oscillate around
140% and with slight increases in relation to the previous
scenario.
Fig. 10. Neutral Current THD for 41.5 kW Power Charging.
In this condition, the values recommended by the
standards were not violated, as presented in Table I.
D. Total Harmonic Distortion THD – 80 kW.
The last condition analyzed is with the maximum allowed
current/power in the electric charger. The waveform
measurements are presented in Figure 11. A less distorted
waveform can be observed in the phase currents, a fact that is
verified in Figure 12, with a current THD varying from 3% up
to 8% in the final part of the recharge.
Fig. 11. Voltage (up) and Current (down) waveforms for 80 kW Power
charging.
Fig. 12. Voltage and Current THD for 41.5 kW Power Charging.
Finally, the harmonic content in the neutral current turned
out to be a little higher when compared to the previous
conditions, this can be observed in Figure 13.
Fig. 13. Neutral Current THD for 41.5 kW Power Charging.
6
 The summary of the harmonic rate of distortion as well as
the individual percentages of 5th and 7th harmonics, compared
to the values allowed in PRODIST, Module 8 [19] and IEEE
519: 2014 [20] are presented in Table 1 below.
Table II presents the harmonic percentages obtained for 0-
10 order harmonics; it can be seen that these harmonics
increase as the recharge power is increased. Special attention
also requires the zero-order harmonic, which also increased,
and resulted in greater increases in the zero-order current
harmonic. In general, the percentages observed during
recharging did not exceed those recommended by the
standard, as observed.
Table III presents the current harmonic percentages for
harmonics of order 0-11th, for the three recharging currents
analyzed, and the THDI for the three conditions. It is observed
that although the individual harmonics increase for higher
recharge currents/, the THDI decreases, mainly due to the
increase in the recharge current. So, the impact of the
harmonic content generated by recharging EV in distribution
systems can be analyzed considering the total demand
distortion (TDD), defined by IEEE Std 519-2014, as the
harmonic content of current expressed as a percent of the
maximum demand current [10], [20], [21]. This study will be
presented in future works.

TABLE I. VOLTAGE HARMONIC CONTENT IN E-BUS CHARGING MEASUREMENTS [19], [20, P. 2014].
% Voltage
THDV Standard
EVSE Power Standard Harmonic Order
Output (Phase “c”) M8 - IEEE 519-2014 5th 7th M8 -
IEEE 519-2014
PRODIST PRODIST
10.5 kW 1.91 % 10 % 8% 3.33 % 2.67 % 6.5 % 5%
41.5 kW 1.98 % 10 % 8% 3.53 % 3.27 % 6.5 % 5%
80.0 kW 1.99 % 10 % 8% 3.38 % 2.80 % 6.5 % 5%

TABLE II. VOLTAGE HARMONIC CONTENT IN E-BUS CHARGING MEASUREMENTS [19], [20, P. 2014].
% 3rd order Multiples % Even
EVSE Standard
Voltage Harmonic Order Standard Voltage Harmonic Order
Power
Zero 3rd 6th 9th M8 - IEEE 2nd 4th 8th 10th M8 - IEEE
Output
PRODIST 519-2014 PRODIST 519-2014
10.5 kW -0.3 0.14 0.04 0.32 6.5 % 5% 0.07 0.04 0.05 0.04 7.5 % 5%
41.5 kW -0.32 0.28 0.17 0.33 6.5 % 5% 0.35 0.84 0.13 0.14 7.5 % 5%
80.0 kW -0.35 0.45 0.38 0.35 6.5 % 5% 0.7 0.51 0.41 0.25 7.5 % 5%

TABLE III. CURRENT HARMONIC CONTENT IN E-BUS CHARGING MEASUREMENTS [19], [20, P. 2014].

%
EVSE Power
THDI Current Harmonic Order
Current
(Phase “c”) Zero 2nd 3rd 4th 5th 6th 7th 8th 9th 10th 11th
16.5 A 9.39% 0.29 0.66 0.23 0.22 0.94 0.15 1.94 0.16 0.11 0.08 0.42
63 A 6.52% 0.86 0.89 0.93 0.8 3.46 0.71 4.28 0.36 0.56 0.32 0.81
126 A 4.25% 0.90 2.42 2.38 1.2 4.20 1.48 4.51 1.27 0.79 0.6 0.92

IV. CONCLUSIONS
With the exponential growth of electric vehicles in recent
years, studies analyzing their impacts on electrical systems
become very important both in the planning phase and in the
optimal location in the EVSE systems.
This work presented an analysis of the harmonic content
existing at different recharging powers in a recharging cycle
of an electric bus. Analyzing the recharge cycle, it was
observed how the current harmonic distortion rate increases,
as a result of the reduction in power when the SoC of the e-
bus batteries reaches between 80-90%.
The different recharging powers analyzed showed that the
voltage total harmonic distortion increase with higher powers
and the current total harmonic distortion decrease with higher
currents, as expected. Individual harmonics also increased
with higher charging currents, with the 5th and 7th order
harmonics presenting the highest percentages, mainly due to
the AC-DC converter present in the e-bus.
For future works, the total distortion demand (TDD) will
be considered to better assess the impacts of the E-Bus
charging cycles on the distribution feeders of the Federal
University of Pará.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors of the article are grateful for the support of the
Norte Energia S.A. to carry out the present work, within the
scope of the ANEEL R&D project 07427-0319 / 2019 entitled
“Intelligent system for efficient management of multimodal
electric mobility”, carried out within the scope of Call 22/2018
– ANEEL, as well as the support of the Brazilian National
Council of Scientific and Technological (CNPq).
REFERENCES
[1] J. Quirós-Tortós, L. Victor-Gallardo, e L. Ochoa, “Electric Vehicles
in Latin America: Slowly but Surely Toward a Clean Transport”,
IEEE Electrification Magazine, vol. 7, no 2, p. 22–32, jun. 2019, doi:
10.1109/MELE.2019.2908791.
[2] “International evaluation of public policies for electromobility in
urban fleets | International Council on Clean Transportation”.

6
 https://theicct.org/publications/international-evaluation-public-
policies-electromobility-urban-fleets (acessado jan. 12, 2021).
[3] “Global EV Outlook 2019 – Analysis”, IEA.
https://www.iea.org/reports/global-ev-outlook-2019 (acessado jan.
12, 2021).
[4] “Seeg Brasil | Documentos Analíticos”.
http://seeg.eco.br/documentos-analiticos (acessado jan. 12, 2021).
[5] “All-Electric Vehicles”.
http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/evtech.shtml (acessado jan. 12,
2021).
[6] D. Anseán, M. González, J. C. Viera, J. C. Álvarez, C. Blanco, e V.
M. García, “Evaluation of LiFePO4 batteries for Electric Vehicle
applications”, in 2013 International Conference on New Concepts in
Smart Cities: Fostering Public and Private Alliances (SmartMILE),
dez. 2013, p. 1–8, doi: 10.1109/SmartMILE.2013.6708211.
[7] “USCAR: U.S. Advanced Battery Consortium LLC”.
http://www.uscar.org/guest/view_team.php?teams_id=12 (acessado
jan. 12, 2021).
[8] W.-J. Zhang, “Structure and performance of LiFePO4 cathode
materials: A review”, Journal of Power Sources, vol. 196, no 6, p.
2962–2970, mar. 2011, doi: 10.1016/j.jpowsour.2010.11.113.
[9] G. Guzmán, J. Vazquez-Arenas, G. Ramos-Sánchez, M. Bautista-
Ramírez, e I. González, “Improved performance of LiFePO4 cathode
for Li-ion batteries through percolation studies”, Electrochimica
Acta, vol. 247, p. 451–459, set. 2017, doi:
10.1016/j.electacta.2017.06.172.
[10] R. Bass e N. Zimmerman, “Impacts of Electric Vehicle Charging on
Electric Power Distribution Systems”, Electrical and Computer
Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations, set. 2013, doi:
10.15760/trec.145.
[11] V. Monteiro, H. Goncalves, e J. L. Afonso, “Impact of Electric
Vehicles on power quality in a Smart Grid context”, p. 1–6, out.
2011, doi: 10.1109/EPQU.2011.6128861.
[12] A. K. Karmaker, S. Roy, e M. R. Ahmed, “Analysis of the Impact of
Electric Vehicle Charging Station on Power Quality Issues”, in 2019
International Conference on Electrical, Computer and
Communication Engineering (ECCE), fev. 2019, p. 1–6, doi:
10.1109/ECACE.2019.8679164.
[13] Y. Liu, T. Chang, H. Chen, T. Chang, e P. Lan, “Power quality
measurements of low-voltage distribution system with smart electric
vehicle charging infrastructures”, in 2014 16th International
Conference on Harmonics and Quality of Power (ICHQP), maio
2014, p. 631–635, doi: 10.1109/ICHQP.2014.6842879.
[14] V. Monteiro, H. Gonçalves, e J. L. Afonso, “Impact of Electric
Vehicles on power quality in a Smart Grid context”, in 11th
International Conference on Electrical Power Quality and
Utilisation, out. 2011, p. 1–6, doi: 10.1109/EPQU.2011.6128861.
[15] J. C. Gomez e M. M. Morcos, “Impact of EV battery chargers on the
power quality of distribution systems”, IEEE Transactions on Power
Delivery, vol. 18, no 3, p. 975–981, jul. 2003, doi:
10.1109/TPWRD.2003.813873.
[16] “IEC 61851-1:2017 | IEC Webstore”.
https://webstore.iec.ch/publication/33644 (acessado jan. 08, 2021).
[17] “SAE J1772”, Wikipedia. jan. 05, 2021, Acessado: jan. 14, 2021.
[Online]. Disponível em:
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=SAE_J1772&oldid=998
510768.
[18] “3.2.2 Lecture Notes: AC charging of EVs”, TU Delft OCW.
https://ocw.tudelft.nl/course-readings/electric-cars-technology-18/
(acessado jan. 14, 2021).
[19] “PRODIST – Módulo 8 – Qualidade da Energia Elétrica - ANEEL”.
http://app.aneel.gov.br/modulo-8 (acessado maio 15, 2020).
[20] “IEEE Recommended Practice and Requirements for Harmonic
Control in Electric Power Systems”, IEEE Std 519-2014 (Revision of
IEEE Std 519-1992), p. 1–29, jun. 2014, doi:
10.1109/IEEESTD.2014.6826459.
[21] “Interpreting IEEE STD 519 and meeting its harmonic limits in VFD
applications - IEEE Conference Publication”.
https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/1242609 (acessado jan. 18,
2021).