Photovoltaic hosting capacity evaluation of distribution grid integrated with two modes of battery swap stations

This paper evaluates the photovoltaic (PV) hosting capacity (HC) of a distribution grid integrated with electric vehicle (EV) battery swap stations. Two modes of battery swapping are addressed: centralized and decentralized. In the centralized mode, swapped batteries are collected from various locations and transported to the centralized charging stations (CCSs) for recharging. In decentralized mode, however, batteries are both swapped and recharged at battery swapping stations (BSSs). To explore these modes, various scenarios are modeled to simulate the charging of batteries, considering initial charge states, battery capacities, and different charging schemes. The percentage of PV penetration is incrementally increased in different scenarios, and technical indicators—including feeder current, energy losses, node voltage, and transformer loading—are analyzed to calculate the PV hosting capacity. Monte Carlo simulation method is employed to generate and analyze scenarios associated with load patterns, PV power generation, and charging station power in different seasons of the year. The proposed framework is implemented on the IEEE 34-bus network using MATLAB and MATPOWER for load flow analysis. The results suggest that in decentralized mode, HC strongly depends on BSS location; when PV units are located at the same bus as BSSs, the HC increases by over 132 % compared to the base case. Moreover, increasing the number of EVs from 50 to 150 reduces the HC by more than 9 %. On the other hand, in centralized mode, increasing the frequency of battery collection cycles improves the hosting capacity by more than 39 %.