Hosting Capacity Assessment of South African Residential Low-Voltage Networks for Electric Vehicle Charging

The necessity for environmentally friendly transportation systems has prompted the proliferation of electric vehicles (EVs) in low-voltage (LV) distribution networks. However, large-scale integration and simultaneous charging of EVs can create power quality challenges for the distribution grid. It is therefore important to assess the impact of connecting EVs for charging in existing distribution networks and determine the hosting capacity (HC) of such a network. This paper uses a deterministic time-series method and stochastic method based on a simplified Monte Carlo simulation to estimate the HC of single-phase and three-phase EV charging, respectively, for a South African low-voltage distribution network containing 21 households. Voltage drop and equipment loading are the performance indices (PI) considered for the impact assessment and HC estimation in this study. The impact assessment result confirms that increasing EV charging penetration will result in a corresponding movement of the PIs toward the allowable limits. The results show that the HC is 5–8 three-phase EVs charging simultaneously for the worst-case scenario and 9–13 EVs for the best-case scenario. Furthermore, the single-phase HC for the popular 3.7 kW EV charger is 15 and 8 EVs for the best-case and worst-case scenarios, respectively. The result showing the seasonal variation in HC and for other EV charging power is also presented. The difference in HC for the worst-case and best-case scenarios portrays the effect that the location of charging has on the HC.