Impact of Electric Vehicle Charging on Power Grid

GUO Chun-lin, WU Li, WANG Dan, QI Wen-boˈXIAO Xiang-ning

State Key Laboratory of Alternate Electrical Power System with Renewable Energy Sources
North China Electric Power University
Beijing, China
gcl@ncepu.edu.cn

Abstract—This paper analyzes the prospect and the associated
impact on power grid of large-scale applications of electric
vehicles, and the countermeasures to reduce such kind of impact.
Electric public bus, electric mini-car and electric passenger car
have good prospects, so that they will became a great charging
load. It also will produce a variety of disadvantage effects to the
distribution network under the natural charging mode. These
effects can be reduced by rebuild and expansion of the
distribution network, governance of technology and orderly
utilization. Orderly utilization can improve acceptance ability of
power grid greatly without adding new facilities, so it should be a
prior method in use.
Keywords-electric vehicle; power system; charging; orderly
utilization
I. INTRODUCTION
Internal combustion engine vehicle has undergone a
century of development and prosperity, however, with the
gradual depletion of oil resources and worsening of
environmental pollution, electric vehicle (EV) has been put on
the development agenda, and becomes a major international
issue of common concern. Governments have established
policies and plans to promote the development of EV. GM,
Ford, Daimler-Chrysler, Toyota and other international auto
giant have invested heavily in developing the next generation
of EV. In China, new energy automotive industry, focused on
EV, is determined as one of seven strategic emerging
industries by the government. CCAG, FAW, GFM, State Grid,
China Southern Power Grid, CNPC and other large state-
owned enterprises have formed a Electric Vehicle Industry
Alliance to facilitate the integration of resources to increase
capital investment and promote the cooperation between
industry, education and academy, and push forward the
formation of the industrial chain.
On the one hand, the application and development of EV
need electric power support from power grid. On the other
hand, because vehicle is a basic tool in the production and life
of modern society, and is of great amount, widely distributed
and multi-energy consumed, it will bring a tremendous
pressure and impact on power grid when a large number of
electric vehicles are utilized. This paper focuses on these
issues.
II. WIDELY POTENTIAL FOREGROUD OF EV
The development of EV in China will focus on 3 aspects:
electric public bus, electric mini-car and electric passenger car.
According to the difficulty of promotion, it is expected that
electric public buses and official cars will be applied widely in
5 years, electric mini-cars and electric taxis will be applied
widely in 5-10 years, and the application of private passenger
cars will be even later.
A. Electric Public Bus
Public buses include city public buses, municipal
vehicles, airport shuttle buses, postal vehicles and so on, while
the vast majority of public buses are city public buses. For
public buses, the area, distance and time of driving is mainly
fixed, therefore the charge demand is of great regularity. In
particular, these buses are generally owned by public
institutions or state-owned enterprises, and are usually
operated and managed uniformly. So the construction and
operation of charging infrastructure of them is convenient.
Electric buses run in fixed route, so it’s only needed to
construct centralized charging facilities, and the charging
mode is battery replacement with the supplement of fast
charging.
According to the 12th Five-year Transportation Plan and
the 12th Urban Public Transport Development Planˈby the
end of 2015, in China the public buses will amount to 60,000,
20,000 more than the amount of 2010. In the city with urban
population of more than 3 million, 1~3 million and less than
1million, number of buses per 10 thousand will exceed 15, 12
and 10.
Electric public bus is the easiest kind of EV to promote.
Assuming that its penetration rate reaches 30% in 5 years, the
amount of electric public buses in Beijing will get to 8000-
9000 and there will be 50,000~10ˈ000 electric public buses
in some big cities, and the average annual demand will be
10,000~20,000.
B. Electric Mini-car
Electric mini-car is between electric bike and electric
passenger car that is suitable for urban user and suburban
commuter. By 2010, in China there are 120 million
motorcycles [1, 2], 470 million bicycles [3], 120 million
electric bikes [4], and the total amount of above is 710 million.
With the development of people's living standard, a safe and
affordable alternative travel tool is needed, and electric mini-
car would be the best choice.
Assuming that the penetration rate reaches 3% in 5 years,
the amount of electric mini car in Beijing, Shanghai,
Guangzhou and Shenzhen will be respectively 210,000[5],
124,000[6], 82,000[7] and 57,000[8, 9]. In other cities, towns
and villages, the amount will be 6.1 million. Therefore the

This work is supported by: Key Project of the National Eleventh-Five

Year Research Program of China(2011BAG02B14), National High
Technology Research and Development ProgramDŽ

978-1-4244-8165-1/11/$26.00 ©2011 IEEE

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total amount of electric mini car in China will be 6.57million the grid is more obvious, which will have a significant
[10], and the average annual demand will be 1.314 million. influence on construction and operation of the distribution
network.
C. Electric Passenger Car
EV is a basic transport tool in our life that runs around
Due to high price and limited charging facilities, electric the city with users every day. Electric vehicles’ plug and
cars may be used as official cars and taxis in the early period. charge mode will increase the load of both work area during
At present, the Chinese Government's annual the day and residential area at night. Because it’s as same as
procurement of official cars is more than 80 billion RMB [11], the original load in spatial and temporal distribution, this will
if the price is 120-200 thousand RMB per car the amount of lead to “peak plus peak”, and increase the peak-valley
procurement is about 40 million. Official cars have accounted difference and regional imbalance. It also will result in
for 8% [11] of total passenger car market, and it is expected overvoltage and overcurrent of the existing lines, transformers
that the annual new cars is about 40 to 50 million. With the and other equipments, and will reduce equipment utilization
promotion of government, it is assumed that there will be 5% rate.
EV in new official cars, the average annual demand of electric The combined effects of holidays, significant events and
cars will be 20,000~25,000. other factors may bring about abnormal peak load in some
At present, in China there are 1.1 million taxis [12], 36% areas, which may have great impact on power grid safety and
of which are in 37 big cities such as Beijing, Shanghai and stability. In addition, non linearity and asymmetric of charging
Guangzhou. Electric taxis are hard to promotion in small cities equipments will increase the harmonic currents of distribution
for lack of charging facilities. Assuming that the penetration network, resulting in three phases imbalance and increasing
rate reaches 20% in 5 years, there will be 22000 electric taxis, the neutral current. All of these will reduce the reliability of
and the average annual demand will be 4400. power supply and power quality or even damage the
equipments.
III. IMPACT OF EV NATURAL CHARGING ON POWER GRID
However, EV charging load also has positive factor that
Table I summarizes the characteristics, effects of EV is its controllability nature. Electric vehicles either are parked
charging load in the natural charging mode and the solutions. in most of time so that it can be charged at any time, or are
It can be seen that there are both micro and macro effects of equipped with spare battery so that it can replace a fully
charging load on the power grid, which are analyzed in the charged battery at any time. Each charging mode is adjustable
following. and controllable, which provides the basic conditions for
orderly utilization.
TABLE I. CHARACTERISTIC, IMPACT AND SOLUTIONS OF EV CHARGING
LOAD
In addition, it is difficult to determine the transient
characteristics of EV charging and its impacts and solutions,
solutions more in-depth study of which is needed.
Characteris
Impact Rebuild & Technology Orderly
tic B. Macro-effect Analysis
Expansion Governance Utilization
Large Increase facilities,
ƸƸ ƸƸ
Although automotive energy consumption accounted for a
capacity Reduce margin high proportion of oil consumption—34% in China, 60% [13]
Large Overvoltage and in USA and 40% [14] in the world, the total consumption is
ƸƸ ƸƸƸƸ
peak-valley overcurrent still relatively small compared to electricity consumption.
difference Reduce utilization rate Ƹ ƸƸƸƸ Take China as an example, the total installed capacity of
Non Increase harmonic and power plants in 2010 was 960 GW[15], and the total generating
ƸƸƸƸ
linearity reactive currents capacity was 4.1 trillion kWh [16], which means about 1.644
Asymmetri Voltage imbalance, in-
ƸƸƸƸ
billion tons of standard coal consumption. Oil consumption
c crease neutral current was 429 million tons, while automobile consumption was 146
Sags, swells, flickers million tons, accounting for 34% of total oil consumption,
Impulse ƸƸƸƸ
and interruptions which was equivalent to about 200 million tons of standard
Regional coal.
Reduce utilization rate ƸƸ ƸƸƸƸ
imbalance The amount of electricity that automobile oil consumption
Difficult in analysis, Increase Increase is equivalent to can be calculated using the following formula:
Distributed
monitoring and control difficulty difficulty
Peak shift and valley
Controll- filling, regional bal- provide X ρi
ability ance, emergency conditions W= (1)
power
T ρe
transient
Its mechanism, impacts and solutions are difficult to Where W represents the amount of electricity that automobile
characterist
determine, a thorough research is needed
ics oil consumption is equivalent to, X is the amount automobile
oil consumption expressed by standard coal, ȡi is the vehicle
A. Micro-effect Analysis efficiency of internal combustion engine vehicle, which is
Table I shows that, the micro-impact of EV charging on about 12%, ȡe is the vehicle efficiency of EV, which is about

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19%, T is the average coal consumption of power generation, Rebuild & Technology Orderly
which is 0.404kg/kWh in China. Expansion Governance Utilization
If we ignore the efficiency difference between traditional Space
ƸƸƸƸ ƸƸ
vehicle and EV, the formula can be simplified as: Constraints
Economic Cost ƸƸƸƸ ƸƸ
X Technology
ƸƸ ƸƸƸƸ
W= (2) Cost α +β =
T User Cost Ƹ 0 or Even Profit
1) Rebuild & Expansion
Since the internal combustion engine vehicle has its
These measures can improve the acceptance ability
advantage in driving range and convenience, as long as oil and
of charge load by rebuilding and expanding distribution
natural gas resources are not really exhausted, internal
network, so as to solve the problems of large charging load
combustion engine cars will still get a wide applications in
capacity and regional imbalance to some extent. But
some areas. So the penetration rate of EV maybe far lower
this method need huge investment and cannot reduce the
than 100%.
impact produced by peak-valley difference, imbalance, non-
Table Ċ respectively gives equivalent generating linear and so on. It also will result in decreasing utilization rate
capacity, the proportion of total generating capacity and of equipment and investment benefit.
average load of EV when the penetration rate is 100% and Moreover, because of the spatial constraints such as land
30%, where the peak load is calculated with assumption that use of equipment, transmission corridors and so on, the
the peak-load shoulder-load ratio is 3:1. comprehensive costs are too high. Especially in the central
area of large cities such as Beijing, it is hardly to obtain land
TABLE II. EQUIVALENT GENERATING CAPACITY AND LOAD
for new distribution facilities and transmission corridors.
penetration rate 100% 30% Therefore spatial constraints nearly become rigid constraint,
efficiency differences N Y N Y and it is very difficult to improve charging load acceptance
Equivalent Generating capacity by rebuild and expansion.
495 313 149 94
Capacity˄Billion kWh˅ 2) Technology Governance
Proportion of Total In Table I, nonlinear charging load and asymmetry problem
12.1 7.6 3.63 2.28
Generating Capacity (%) are mainly generated by charging equipment. The peak-
Average Load˄GW˅ 57 36 17 11 valley difference is closely related to operation and
Peak Load˄GW˅ 171 108 51 32 management. And these problems can be improved through
Proportion of Total establishing technical standards and policies so as to eliminate
17.8 11.2 5.34 3.36
Installed Capacity˄%˅ disadvanced charging equipments and management methods.
Note: Y means considering efficiency differences; N means ignoring This approach need investment for technology and
efficiency differences.
equipment, and can reduce adverse impact on the grid
In macro scope, for the EV charging load and capacity are
effectively, obtain better overall efficiency, have fewer spatial
not very large and power system has strong dispatching ability,
constraints, and is a recommended measure.
the demand of EV charging can be satisfied easily. However,
the uneven distribution in time and space of EV charging load 3) Orderly Utilization
is similar to the existing load that maybe leads to “peak plus The charging load of EV is easy to control, which provides
peak”, increases peak-valley difference and reduces equipment conditions to decrease its adverse impact through orderly
utilization rate, which will have a negative impact on utilization. Orderly utilization is a typical user-response
economical efficiency of power grid. technology, which guides users to charge more suitably by
price leverage and policy measures, so as to achieve load
IV. ANALYSIS OF OPTIMAL CHARGING MODE OF EV shaping and regional balance. The advantages of orderly
Table ĉ shows that according to a variety of adverse utilization are listed in the followings:
effects on the grid in natural charging mode of EV, we can a) It focuses in peak-valley difference, regional
take some measures such as rebuild & expansion, technology imbalance, impulse issues and has better effect on them. It can
governance, and orderly utilization etc. These will lead to an increase charging load acceptance capacity and power grid
optimal charging mode discussed as follows. economic performance without building more facilities.
A. Solutions for Optimal Charging Mode of EV b) It has the most widely applicability. As showed in
table III, the cost for implementation of orderly utilization is
As showed in tablHĉ, there are different solutions to deal mainly technology cost. It requires small investment, and its
with the impact of different characteristics of charging load. space and technology constraints are small, too.
Here table ċ shows the limitations of these solutions.
c) Orderly utilization not only won’t affect the
TABLE III. LIMITATIONS OF DIFFERENT SOLUTIONS convenience of charging but also can bring benefits for users.
Fig. 1 shows the benefits distribution of orderly utilization.
Limitation Solutions The essence of orderly utilization is that power companies

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buy peak shift capacity and emergency capacity from EV
GUO Chun-lin received the BSc and Ph.D.
users. On the one hand, the power company can use charging degrees in electrical engineering from Tsinghua
load to shift peak load, fill valley load and reduce emergency University, Beijing, China, in 1998 and 2003.
capacity to enhance power grid efficiency, increase the Now, he is associate Professor of the School of
acceptance capacity of new energy and improve security and Electrical and Electronic Engineering, North
China Electric Power University, Beijing,
stability. On the other hand, because of the preferential price China. His research interests include electric
users can reduce their expenditures, and even get some extra vehicle charging technology, analysis and
income. Thus, the benefits distributed suitably between power control of FACTS and power quality control.
companies and users will promote orderly utilization. Email: gcl@ncepu.edu.cn
GUO Chun-lin

Wu Li received his BSc in electrical engineering

and its automation from North China Electric
Power University, Baoding, China, in 2008.
Now, he is pursuing his MSc at North China
Electric Power University. His main research
interest is electric vehicle charging technology.
Email: wuli9595@163.com

Wu Li

Wang Dan received her BSc in electrical

engineering and automation from Xi’An
Figure 1. Benefits Distribution of Orderly utilization University of Technology, Xi’an, China, in
2010. Now, she is pursuing her MSc at North
Obviously, the above three solutions have specific range. China Electric Power University. Her main
Only by comprehensive use of them based on their advantages research interest is electric vehicle charging
technology.
can we effectively reduce the adverse impact of large
Email: en_waiwai@yahoo.com.cn
scale charging on the grid and improve electric
vehicle acceptance ability. Wang Dan
QI Wen-bo received his BSc in wind energy
and power engineering from North China
V. CONCLUSION Electric Power University, Beijing, China, in
2010. Now, he is pursuing his MSc at the
The paper analyzes the effects on the grid of large scale same University. His main research interest is
application of EV and corresponding measures, the main electric vehicle charging technology.
Email: qwbfd@126.com
conclusions are as follows:
1) Electric vehicles have a good prospect. Electric public
bus, electric mini-car and electric passenger car are major QI Wen-bo
focuses of development, which will lead to a large charge load.
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