Minimizing power losses impact at distribution network system considering massive electric vehicle load by installing capacitor banks

Abstract

As a member of the Paris Agreement, Malaysia is committed to transform the country into low-carbon society. Malaysian government is aiming to reduce the Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emission by 45% by year 2030 in relation to our 2005 Gross Domestic Product (GDP). As such, Malaysian government is promoting the Energy Efficient Vehicle (EEV), including Electric Vehicle (EV) and is aiming to have 100% of EEV on- road by the year 2030. With the implementation of EV policies in Malaysia, these policies will act as a catalyst for mass adoption of EV in Malaysian market. From the viewpoint of power system, these EVs are additional loads when they connect to the power grid to receive charging. The massive penetration of electric vehicles (EV) load have negatively impacted the distribution network system, especially on the power losses. Hence, this situation has led to the need for a set of unifying rules for the power grid to accommodate this additional charging demand. In order to mitigate these issues, optimal placement and sizing of multiple capacitor banks for medium and low voltage distribution network system are optimized by using the Lightning Search Algorithm (LSA). Distribution network system, EV Charging Station and capacitor banks, are modelled by using PSS Adept software and programmed in MATLAB. The performance of LSA is then compared with Modified Lightning Search Algorithm (MLSA). Based on the simulation, the MLSA method will be the best method to minimize the power losses at 69 bus radial distribution network system. The research has proven that the optimal placement and sizing of variable capacitor banks were able to minimize the power losses. Furthermore, the results prove that the variation of capacitor banks are able to provide superior solution compared to single size. Hence, it can be concluded that the multiple capacitor banks with an assistance of the MLSA method is the most suitable to be implemented in minimizing power losses in distribution network system due to the massive penetration of electric vehicles load.