648
2, MARCH 2015
PEV Charging Control Considering Transformer
Life and Experimental Validation of a 25 kVA
Distribution Transformer
Qiuming Gong, Member, IEEE, Shawn Midlam-Mohler, Emmanuele Serra, Vincenzo Marano,
and Giorgio Rizzoni, Fellow, IEEE
Abstract—When considering the characteristics of electric
power systems in the U.S., the local distribution is the most
likely part to be adversely affected by the unregulated plug-
in electric vehicle (PEV) charging. The increased load that can
result from unregulated charging of PEVs could dramatically
accelerate the aging of electrical transformers. In this paper, the
control strategies that can mitigate or eliminate the accelerated
aging that could result from load peaks caused by PEV charging
is developed. The aging model makes it possible to develop charg-
ing control strategies that protect the transformer system while
maximizing overall PEV charging quality. The charging control
policy makes use of load prediction algorithms using data-driven
models that are based on actual electricity consumption data. The
experimental tests are done to calibrate the thermal model of a
25 kVA distribution transformer and validate the effectiveness of
the control strategy.
Index Terms—Distribution transformer, grid interaction,
plug-in electric vehicles (PEVs), smart charging.
I. I NTRODUCTION
HE INCREASED number of plug-in electric
T vehicles (briefly, PEVs) in the near future arises
challenges and offers new opportunities to the smart grid
research community at the same time. A first literature survey
on the impact of PEV deployment, which reviews among the
others researches conducted by the National Laboratories, is
presented in [1]. According to the authors, even though the
current electric network is capable of handling most of the
future PEV charging requests, the integration of smart grid
concepts is mandatory to completely exploit the possibilities
of PEVs and to enable the distribution network to host
advanced grid technologies such as vehicle-to-grid [namely,
vehicle-to-grid (V2G)] systems. Farmer et al. [2] emphasize
Manuscript received October 1, 2013; revised March 22, 2014 and
July 26, 2014; accepted October 10, 2014. Date of publication
November 20, 2014; date of current version February 16, 2015. This work was
supported in part by the SMART@CAR Consortium members at the Ohio
State University Center for Automotive Research, and in part by the U.S.
Department of Energy Graduate Automotive Technology Education Center of
Excellence under Grant DE FG26 05NT42616. Paper no. TSG-00757-2013.
Q. Gong is with Ford Motor Company, Dearborn, MI 48124 USA.
S. Midlam-Mohler, E. Serra, and G. Rizzoni are with the Center for
Automotive Research, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Ohio State
University, Columbus, OH 43212 USA (e-mail: midlam-mohler.1@osu.edu).
V. Marano is with the Department of Industrial Engineering, University of
Salerno, Fisciano 84084, Italy.
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this paper are available
online at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TSG.2014.2365452
1949-3053 c 2014 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission.
See http://www.ieee.org/publications_standards/publications/rights/index.html for more information.
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON SMART GRID, VOL. 6, NO.
the importance of understanding how the PEV charging at the
residential level affects the distribution network by proposing
a PEV distribution circuit impact model. In [3], works on the
impact on the distribution grid are reviewed and categorized
depending on whether the PEV charging is seen as an
active load or an energy storage device. Besides this duality,
Gong et al. [3] also report work coping with grid stability
issues. Dharmakeerthi et al. [4] perform a review on PEV
charging impact on the power grid from a slightly different
point of view. They consider the challenges/opportunities that
electric utilities and, in limited ways, automobile industries
will have to face/exploit in order to achieve a good level of
integration of PEVs and the power grid.
The challenge of integrating residential PEV charging seam-
lessly in the current distribution network offers the opportunity
to encourage their market penetration. Moreover, it is a com-
mon belief that the electric mobility spreading will benefit
individual transportation in reference to fossil fuel dependency
and reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. Finally, the PEV
electric load can also be seen as an energy storage system in
the V2G paradigm, or they can facilitate the development of
community energy storage systems by means of PEV aged
batteries second use (see [5], [6]).
However, the main concern arises when it comes to deal
with the extra burden deriving by the uncoordinated connec-
tion of an increasing number of electric loads to the residential
outlets. Electric utilities are willing to figure out what is going
to happen to the electric grid bottleneck (namely, the distri-
bution transformers installed at the neighborhood level which
serves a few household units) in different PEV market penetra-
tion scenarios. In fact, as pointed out in [7], in high-integration
level scenario, transformer temporary overloading is admis-
sible as long as a subsequent recovery strategy to decrease
the transformer temperature is provided. Hilshey et al. [8]
study the charging impact on distribution transformer life bases
on IEEE guide Annex G model. Nevertheless, according to
Masoum et al. [9] there is a lack of knowledge about the distri-
bution transformer performances in PEV residential charging
scenarios. Furthermore, Moses et al. [10] argue that what is
needed is a deep understanding of the impact of unregulated
PEV charging onto the distribution network because it is very
unlikely that its infrastructure will be able to support smart
charging control strategies in the near future. In other words,
it can be possible that the PEV market diffusion outpaces the
GONG et al.: PEV CHARGING CONTROL CONSIDERING TRANSFORMER LIFE AND EXPERIMENTAL VALIDATION
development of the smart grid, requiring an in depth awareness
of the behavior of the local distribution circuits (namely,
transformers and connection cables) thermal dynamics under
PEV loads. As previously pointed out, Dharmakeerthi et al. [4]
reviewed the paper dealing with the impact on the distribution
system assets. Most of this paper has been carried out at the
system level meaning that the interaction of a large number of
components (which in this case are transformers and cables) is
investigated by means of simulation or measurements collected
on actual devices.
Summarizing, survey papers agree that the current distri-
bution network assets are able to support the future PEV
charging load providing that smart charging strategies are
put into operation. One possible manner to classify the stud-
ies on PEV optimal charging control is by the objective
of their optimization. The goal of the optimization process
can be either economical, environmental, or related to the
customer satisfaction. In [11], a full chapter is dedicated
to the optimal charging control of PEVs. This reference is
a good source of papers on the topic of smart charging
strategies. According to the authors, coordination strategies
can be classified into two categories: 1) centralized strate-
gies; and 2) decentralized or distributed strategies, depending
on which kind of information is available to the individual
PEV. The paper presented in [12] is an example of decen-
tralized charging control which can be seen as a form of
finite-horizon noncooperative dynamic game. It is proved that
the demand-dependent price scheme leads the system asymp-
totically toward a Nash equilibrium. Another decentralized
charging algorithm is proposed in [13]. Electricity generation
cost and carbon dioxide emissions are minimized by means of
a decentralized charging algorithm for load shifting (conceived
emulating optimal charging pattern obtained as solution of a
linear programming problem) and frequency regulation algo-
rithm based on frequency droop (which can be implemented
in a decentralized way).
Mets et al. [14] assumed that the charging rate can be
controlled and that PEV charging duration is known, lever-
age quadratic programming to minimize the peak load, and
flatten the overall load profile. The resultant smart energy
control strategy is exploited in this paper as an element of
comparison and will be referred as the average transformer
load approach. Likewise in [15], stochastic quadratic and
dynamic programming techniques are employed to minimize
the power losses and to maximize the main grid load factor.
Sortomme et al. [16] developed three optimal charging algo-
rithms which unveil the connection among feeder losses, load
factor, and load variance. Moreover, the trend that it is pos-
sible to infer from survey studies evolution is that the recent
research is focusing its interest in the distribution level of the
power grid rather than in the transmission level [17].
In this paper, we propose a smart charging control strategy
leverages residential base load prediction. The optimization
objective is pursued by means of a tradeoff between the
minimization of the transformer loss of life and the maxi-
mization of the charging service quality. The novelty of our
approach to the problem of PEV charging impact on the dis-
tribution grid consists in taking into account the effect of
649
the charging in terms of loss of life of a real off-the-shelf
distribution transformer, and the proposed control strategies
are also validated based on the experimental tests.
The remaining of this paper is organized as follows. The
transformer thermal and aging modeling which is integrated
in the control problem is summarized in Section II. The
improvement of the predictive charging control strategy is
briefly described in Section III, followed by some performance
improvements results in Section IV. The transformer thermal
model is calibrated for a 25 kVA transformer in Section V,
and the control strategy is validated in Section VI, followed
by the conclusion in Section VII.
II. T RANSFORMER T HERMAL AND AGING M ODELING
The objective of this paper is to study the PEV charging
impact on the distribution transformer systems, and designing
a charging control strategy which can minimize the impact.
Due to the fact that the distribution transformer life is very
sensitive to the winding hot-spot temperature as pointed by
IEEE Standard C57.91-1995 [21], the transformer aging and
thermal models are used in this paper [18]–[20].
The transformer aging is estimated based on the knowledge
of the hot-spot temperature which should be obtained by a
transformer thermal model. Susa et al. [22] did quite extensive
work in the dynamic thermal modeling, experimental valida-
tion of transformer, and they compared their model results to
the IEEE Annex G model [21] to validate the effectiveness of
their dynamic model. Due to the less parameter involved in
the model, the dynamic model proposed in [22] is used for the
hot-spot temperature estimation in this paper. Detailed usage
of the thermal model is described in [18].
III. S MART C HARGING S TRATEGY BASED ON
L OAD P REDICTION
Based on the models in Section II, the transformer loss of
life can be estimated for different power load and ambient tem-
perature conditions. A control strategy can be designed with
the objective to balance the minimization of the transformer
loss of life and the maximization of customer satisfaction.
The intelligent charging of the PEVs is based on the res-
idential base load prediction, which means to predict the
future 12–24 h base load so that we can plan the charging load
more intelligently. The prediction period is chosen based on
the daily base load consideration. A predictive control strategy
is proposed in [19], which involves detailed load prediction
and the charging resource allocation. In this section, the brief
summary of the control strategy is presented based on earlier
work, and some improvement in base load prediction will be
shown together with the improved performance results which
are not included in [19].
A. Data-Driven Base Load Prediction Using ARMA Model
With Information Update
In [23], an auto regressive moving average (ARMA) model-
based prediction is used for this paper considering the easy
implementation of the model (1). The model is further mod-
ified and improved in this paper for the control strategy
650
development. The historical base load data and the temper-
ature data are used together to predict the future base load,
due to the fact that the ambient temperature is correlated with
base load as pointed out by [24]
L(t) + a1 L(t − 1) + · · · + aM1 L(t − M1 )
= b0 θamb (t) + b1 θamb (t − 1) + · · · + bM2 θamb (t − M2 ) (1)
where L is the base load ratio, θamb is the ambient temperature,
ai and bj with i {0, . . . , M1 }, and j {0, . . . , M2 } are param-
eters of the model. M 1 and M 2 are the orders of output and
input. Detailed training and case study of the model can be
found in [23].
The hourly sampled base load data for a 25 kVA trans-
former and the corresponding ambient temperature data near
Columbus, OH, are used for the model fitting [23]. The orders
of M 1 and M 2 are chosen as 48 based on the best fit values
for predicting the future 12–24 h load.
Reference [23] is based on one time prediction for the
future 12–24 h load. The prediction error will propagate and
increase with the increased number of prediction steps. This
problem can be reduced by updating the base load information
during the prediction process, which means instead of predict-
ing the next step based on predicted current step, the real base
load data of the current step can be used. The improved pre-
diction model will be used in the control strategy, and the
corresponding performance improvement will be discussed in
next section.
B. Smart Charging Strategy Based on Load Prediction
Before discussing the real-time applicable control strategy
that takes into account the real PEV plug-in time, real depart-
ing time, and real plug-in SoCs, simple scenarios are studied
first in [23] for the optimization problem. Three charging
strategies are proposed and compared to find the potential
of optimal charging. The three strategies are: 1) genetic
algorithm-based strategy; 2) average charging load strategy;
and 3) average transformer load strategy. Detailed description
of the three strategies can be found in [23].
Based on this paper in [23], the genetic algorithm-based
strategy and the average transformer load strategy have very
close performances with less than 2% differences and are
much better than average charging load strategy. Considering
that the genetic algorithm-based strategy is much more compu-
tationally expensive than the average transformer load strategy,
the average transformer load strategy is much easier for
real-time implementation. It will be used for the real-time
applicable control strategy development.
Reference [23] is based on very simple scenarios, and is
far away from real-time implementation. So we proposed a
real-time applicable algorithm, which is designed to be able
to handle the uncertainties in vehicle arrival time, leaving
time, and arrival SoC [19]. There are generally four major
steps in each loop: 1) predict the base load using historical
data; 2) update the PEV information; 3) obtain the optimal
total charging load with three optional sub-strategies; and
4) distribute the charging rate to the PEV queue. Detailed
descriptions of the sub-strategies and the whole process are
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON SMART GRID, VOL. 6, NO. 2, MARCH 2015
presented in [19]. If not considering the customer satisfaction
issue, the single objective optimization problem considering
only the distribution transformer loss of life can be described
as follows:
 r
min Jlol = f (θoil (s), θhs (s), u(s), θamb (s), ts )
s=l
(2)

r 
j
s.t. u(s) · ts = (SoCk (l) · Ck ) + δ(l) (3)
s=l k=1
j
u(s) ≤ g(SoCk ) (4)
k=1
where f is transformer loss of life model, which is a dynamic
function of total load on the transformer and transformer tem-
peratures (θoil is top-oil temperature, θhs is winding hot-spot
temperature, and θamb is ambient temperature) as described in
transformer thermal and aging modeling section; u(s) is the
total charging load for all the available PEVs based on the
predicted base load (the distribution of this load to each PEV
will be discussed in the next step); Ck is the battery capacity
of the kth PEV; δ(l) is the uncertain term of the future arriving
PEV energy demand since at current step l, the future battery
energy requirements are unknown; g(SoCk ) is the charg-
ing rate constraint model (the battery charging characteristic
curve is set as the charging rate limit). The constraint in (3)
represents the battery energy demand constraint. To tackle the
uncertainty term δ(l ) in the charging demand constraint, three
sub-strategies (A, B, C) are proposed for real-time application
as discussed in [19].
IV. S IMULATION R ESULTS OF THE C ONTROL S TRATEGY
In [19], some simulation results for the control strategy
are presented focusing on the charge rate distribution. In
this section, the data-driven base load information update
effect on performance improvement is studied which is not
covered in [19].
The study case is six houses with six PEVs fed by a
25 kVA transformer. To capture the variation of battery SoCs
caused by different daily driving patterns, Monte Carlo-based
large-scale simulation approach is used for estimation of the
plug-in SoC of PEVs after daily driving as presented in [18].
The plug-in time and departing time distributions are obtained
from the survey data of the National Household Transportation
Survey [25], assuming that the PEVs are plugged-in immedi-
ately after arriving home. The work in this paper is focused
on the residential case, not the public charging scenario in
charging stations.
A. Performance Improvement for Base Load Update
To take into account the variations of base load for different
days and the variations of load prediction errors, the charg-
ing strategy is applied to the two months data in Summer
of 2009. At this step, the same departing time is assumed,
so 18 h prediction is set as the prediction period. The sim-
ulation results for the three different sub-strategies with and
GONG et al.: PEV CHARGING CONTROL CONSIDERING TRANSFORMER LIFE AND EXPERIMENTAL VALIDATION
TABLE I
T EST R ESULTS FOR T WO M ONTHS IN S UMMER BY A PPLYING C ONTROL
R ESULTS TO ACTUAL BASE L OAD
without load information update for prediction are shown in
Table I. Generally, the three sub-strategies (A, B, C) are much
better than the average charging load strategy, especially sub-
strategy B. With the load information update for prediction,
there is about 17% improvement for sub-strategy B.
An additional solution is analyzed with all PEVs infor-
mation available, including plug-in time and battery energy
requirements, namely optimal result. This solution provides
an optimal solution, used as benchmark.
B. Charging Resource Distribution
For the charging rate distribution portion in the algorithm,
detailed discussion can be found in [19]. For the two pro-
posed approaches, the departing time priority approach has
steeper slope, while the balance SoC approach can make the
SoC trajectories grow gradually [19]. Generally, the balance
SoC strategy is more effective from the customer satisfaction
aspect. To quantitatively describe the quality of charging ser-
vice, a satisfaction factor is defined in [19] to measure average
departing SoC values
fsat = mean(SoC) + range(SoC). (5)
If taking both the transformer loss of life and customer satis-
faction into the optimization problem, there will be a trade-off
between the two
min J = α · Jlol + γ · fsat . (6)
This means, by tuning the control algorithm, to make the
customers get more satisfied with their departing battery SoC,
there will be some more sacrifice on transformer loss of life.
Detailed trade-off curve can be found in [19].
V. E XPERIMENTAL T ESTS ON THE T RANSFORMER
The smart charging control strategies are presented in ear-
lier sections which show great improvement of performance
to minimize transformer loss of life while maintaining cus-
tomer satisfaction compared to the simple average charging
load strategy. The simulation study is based on a distribution
transformer model that is obtained from earlier literatures. To
validate the effectiveness of the simulation model and the con-
trol strategy, a 25 kVA transformer is used for experimental
tests to calibrate the model parameters.
The control strategies will also be validated based on the
real 25 kVA transformer tests in the next section.
651
Fig. 1. Environmental chamber tests of 25 kVA transformer.
A. Experimental Setup
Since the objective of this paper is to test the transformer
thermal effect and the corresponding temperature responses,
the thermal effect caused by the current load is the focus of the
experimental test. High voltage ac environment is unsafe for
the transformer tests, so instead of powering the transformer
with ac current, the dc power is used to test the thermal effects.
The core loss in ac current is taken into account. Both of the
primary and secondary windings are powered with dc current
inputs. The ratio of the currents on primary and secondary
windings is calculated based on the transformer parameters
on the name plate.
This dc environment tests make the thermocouple mea-
surement possible instead of using the fiber optics, which is
much more expensive, and more complicated to install. In
the experimental tests, the thermocouples are used to measure
the oil, tank, and environmental temperatures and hypodermic
needle probes are used for winding temperature measure-
ment. In [20], some simple testes for oil are done for the
transformer without environmental chamber, and the wind-
ing tests are also not included. Here, more accurate tests
by placing the transformer into an environmental chamber
are carried out, due to the advantage that the environmental
chamber can provide accurate desired ambient temperature.
The environmental chamber is very critical for the exper-
iments, because it can guarantee the ambient temperature
control for the tests. For example, for the constant tem-
perature tests, it can provide the exactly accurate constant
ambient temperature value. It makes the control strategy vali-
dation possible, since the time-varying ambient temperature
curve can be programmed into the chamber to mimic the
real-world ambient condition for the case used in simulation
model.
The experimental set-up for the transformer is shown in
Fig. 1 with the following equipment: 1) 25 kVA residential
distribution transformer; 2) dc power suppliers; 3) National
Instrument LS-9163 data acquisition system; 4) OMEGA
TMTSS-062u-32 thermocouples; 5) OMEGA hypodermic
needle probes; and 6) environmental chamber.
652
Fig. 2. Thermocouples location on the transformer.
The diagram of the locations of thermocouples is shown
in Fig. 2. Four thermocouples are placed at different loca-
tions in the top-oil to measure the top-oil temperature, four
are set at different depths in oil till the bottom, four are put
on the tank of the transformer, and another two are used to
measure the ambient temperature. So far, due to the difficul-
ties in measuring the hot-spot winding temperature directly
by thermocouples, two needle probes are placed at the top
of windings to measure the top-winding temperature. The
direct measurement of hot-spot temperature needs compli-
cated experimental setup and expensive measure equipments.
Though the measured results of windings are not the hot-spot
as desired, it does not affect the structure of this paper. The
essence of the control strategy is cutting the peak temperature.
Since the hot-spot temperature is much higher and responses
faster based on the model parameters, the strategy effect of
cutting the peak temperature would be even better than the
top-winding.
B. AC Loss Compensation
In this paper, we performed all the aging experiments using
dc currents. In a real setting, a transformer sees ac currents.
The power loss of a transformer in ac environment should
include the dc and ac loss as shown in (7), where Ploss is
the total loss, Pdc is the winding dc loss, and Pac is the ac
loss. The winding resistance dominates the dc loss, while the
hysteresis and eddy current losses contribute to the ac loss. So
there is need to compensate for the ac loss when testing the
transformer with just dc currents
Ploss = Pdc + Pac . (7)
Based on the data from an electric utility, the ac loss value
for this specific 25 kVA transformer is about 51 W. This value
is used in this paper to calculate the required dc current load
inputs in experiments. The required actual current load input
to the transformer in the dc environment should be calculated
by (8), where Itotal is the actual total load input, Idc is the
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON SMART GRID, VOL. 6, NO. 2, MARCH 2015
Fig. 3. Test results for top-winding temperatures.
nominal value for the dc loss, and Rw is general sign for the
winding resistance, which represents primary winding resis-
tance and secondary winding. The measurement of resistances
for primary and secondary windings is described in the later
subsection. Both primary and secondary windings are pow-
ered with dc current based on the transformer characteristics,
to mimic the actual heat loss situation
2
Itotal Rw = Idc
2
Rw + Pac . (8)
C. Constant Load Ratio Test Results
The average of the residential distribution transformer base
load ratio is about 0.4–0.5 and the range is 0.2–1 based
on the data obtained from an electric utility. When PEVs
are charged, the total load ratio can rise even to more than
1.5 depending on the PEV market penetration when constant
level 2 charging is taken and no regulation added [18]. To val-
idate the simulation model used in this paper, a set of constant
load ratio tests which represent step response are carried out
for 0.4, 0.6, 0.8, 1.2, and 1.3. The transformer is put into a
programmable environmental chamber so that different ambi-
ent temperatures can be set. Considering the safety of the
transformer, load ratios higher than 1.3 are not tested.
Since four thermocouples are used for top-oil temperature
measurement and two needle probes are used for winding tem-
perature measurement, the results in this paper will be the
average of each group of them. The winding temperature val-
ues for different load ratios are shown in Fig. 3. The winding
temperatures increase gradually and reach the peak values.
When the transformer reaches the steady state, the power is
shut down, and the transformer is cooled down without power
load. Similar results are obtained for top-oil temperatures. The
winding temperature is much higher and responds faster to the
top-oil temperature for the same load.
D. Model Fit for Top-Oil and Top-Winding
As mentioned earlier, the 25 kVA transformer under test
may have different parameters to the model used in simulation.
GONG et al.: PEV CHARGING CONTROL CONSIDERING TRANSFORMER LIFE AND EXPERIMENTAL VALIDATION
Fig. 4. Best fit of the simulation model to the test data.
Based on the tested data in the above subsection, the top-oil
and winding parameters can be fitted and calibrated. There are
mainly two differences when comparing the simulation results
of top-oil temperature with the real test data: the steady state
value gap and the response time lag. Based on the analysis of
the top-oil thermal model, assuming that the other variables
are comparable, we can infer that the steady state value dif-
ference is mainly affected by θoil,rated, while the response
time delay is mainly affected by τoil,rated . The values used for
the simulation model are 38 ◦ C and 150 min, respectively for
these two parameters. To fit the simulation model to the test
data, a cost function in (9) is defined to be minimized in order
to find the optimal values of θoil,rated and τoil,rated
min Joil = (θoil_S (t) − θoil_T (t))2 (9)
where θoil_S is the simulated oil temperature and θoil_T is the
tested oil temperature.
A 3-D map can be obtained by computing the least square
metered for the different combination of the two parameter
values. The searching method is used to find the best fit value
which corresponds to the minimum value on the map. For
example, the best fit parameter values for load ratio of 0.8 are
θoil,rated = 40 ◦ C and τoil,rated = 155 min, which are very
close to the values used in the simulation study. The com-
parison of the simulation results and test data for this case is
shown in Fig. 4.
The results of the best fit parameters for all of the six load
ratios are collected in Table II. The values of θoil,rated are
ranging from 30 ◦ C to 40 ◦ C when the load ratio values are
around 1, which are close to the value used in the simulation
model (38 ◦ C). The top-oil time constant values are relatively
close ranging from 150 to 165 min, when the load ratio values
are around 1. In the simulation model, the time constant value
is chosen as 150 min based on [22]. Based on the test results,
the tested transformer top-oil time constant values are close to
the values used in the simulation model.
653
TABLE II
M ODEL PARAMETERS FOR D IFFERENT L OAD R ATIOS
Similarly, assuming that the other parameters in the hot-spot
temperature model are comparable, rated hot-spot winding
temperature rise θwinding,rated and winding time constant
τwinding,rated are the model fitting parameters. As mentioned
earlier, hot-spot temperature in this paper is not measured
directly with current available equipments, while the top-
winding temperature is measured instead. But the hot-spot
model is used here to find the characteristics of top-winding
temperature. The validation of using the model is shown in
the next section.
The calibration results for top-winding are also collected
in Table II using the same calibration method for the top-
oil model. From the results, the values of θwinding,rated are
very close under different load ratios. The calibrated values
of τwinding,rated are ranging from 43 to 60 min when the load
ratios are close to 1. Generally, the top-winding temperature
is much lower than the hot-spot temperature which has the
rated temperature rise of 30 ◦ C in the simulation model, and
it also responses much slower than the hot-spot of winding
which has a time constant of only 6 min in the simulation
model.
E. Winding Resistance Test
For the winding resistance Rw , since both the voltage VW
and the current IW through the windings can be measured
directly, the winding resistance can be estimated with (10).
Here, the winding resistance Rw represents both the primary
winding resistance Rwp and the secondary resistance Rws
Rw = Vw /Iw . (10)
By setting the environmental chamber at different temper-
atures, and letting the transformer be heated to steady state,
the resistance tests are carried out under different tempera-
ture. The estimated primary winding resistances at different
temperatures are plotted in Fig. 5. The plots have very good
linear trend. Similar results are obtained also for the secondary
winding resistance.
The resistances increase when the winding temperature
increases during the experiments, following (11) where R0
is the initial value of resistance (e.g., resistance at 0 ◦ C),
and β is the resistance temperature coefficient of wind-
ing. Based on the tests, the resistance temperature coef-
ficients for primary winding and secondary winding are
0.0044071/K and 0.0043361/K, respectively, which are very
close to the value of the same material (aluminum)
654 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON SMART GRID, VOL. 6, NO. 2, MARCH 2015

Fig. 5. Tested primary winding resistance.

Fig. 6. Simulated hot-spot temperature responses.

from another report (0.0040411/K)

Rw = R0 (1 + β · T). (11)

VI. C ONTROL S TRATEGY VALIDATION

A. Control Strategy Validation
In Section III, the smart charging control strategy consid-
ering all the uncertainties is presented. Within the strategy,
the key part is the optimization step. Based on simulations,
the average transformer load strategy can obtain nearly opti-
mal results by comparing to the genetic algorithm based
strategy, and they are much better than the average charg-
ing load strategy. If the experimental tests can show similar
effects, the proposed smart charging control strategy can be
validated to be effective. In this section, the experimental
test results will be presented to validate the control strategy.
Day 6 presented in [23] is chosen as the case study for exper-
imental tests. The prediction of the base load using ARMA Fig. 7. Tested top-winding temperature responses.
model, and the control results for the three strategies are
shown in [23].
To see the detailed responses of hot-spot temperatures, the optimal strategy; and 2) the average charging load strategy.
simulations results are compared in Fig. 6. When applying the To validate the control strategy, experimental tests for the
control results to the predicted base load which is for no error same case study are carried out. Hourly ambient tempera-
prediction assumption, the average transformer load strategy tures are programmed into the environmental chamber. The
and GA-based strategy have very close responses, and they first 6 h data are used to warm up the transformer to the
both try to make the hot-spot temperature as flat as possible. same initial temperature before adding the charging load. In
The average charging load strategy is not as smart as the other this paper, top-winding temperature results are used instead
two, so it generates a big temperature peak. When applying of hot-spot temperature to see the effectiveness of the control
the three control strategies to the actual base load, which take strategies. The comparison of winding temperature responses
the prediction error into account. The average transformer load are shown in Fig. 7. The advantage of the average transformer
strategy still has very close response to the GA-based strategy, load strategy (or GA-based strategy) is very obvious in reduc-
and their peak values are much lower than the average charging ing the winding temperature peak. Since hot-spot temperature
load strategy. responses faster, and has higher peak based on the time con-
Since the average transformer load strategy can obtain stant (τ ) and rated temperature rise (θ ) in the transformer
almost the same results as the GA-based strategy, the two will thermal model as presented in [18], the effect in cutting the
be considered to be the same for the experimental validation. peak temperatures for hot-spot should be even more obvious
Thus, only two strategies will be compared: 1) the GA-based than the other part of winding as indicated in Figs. 6 and 7.
GONG et al.: PEV CHARGING CONTROL CONSIDERING TRANSFORMER LIFE AND EXPERIMENTAL VALIDATION
Fig. 8. Winding and top-oil temperature responses to varying loads.
B. Thermal Model Validation With Varying Loads
In Section V, the transformer thermal model is calibrated
using constant load inputs, which actually represents the step
inputs, showing the temperature response from no load to a
constant load. The dynamics are tested to calibrate the oil and
winding parameters.
To further validate the calibration of thermal models, the
dynamic load ratio and ambient temperature inputs of the day
in the above subsection are used. Under these tests, both of
the load ratios and ambient temperature are changing from
hour-to-hour. The model predicted winding temperature curve
and top-oil temperature curve are compared to the real tested
temperature curves as shown in Fig. 8. The model parame-
ters used in the simulation model are chosen from Table II
using the load ratio of 1. The results show that for both of
the winding and oil cases, the model predicted results can fol-
low the real tested results very well. The maximum error for
the winding temperature prediction is less than 2 ◦ C, and less
than 4 ◦ C for the top-oil temperature. This validation confirms
the effectiveness of the model parameter validation results of
Section V.
VII. C ONCLUSION
In this paper, a smart PEV charging control strategy is pre-
sented to balance the minimization of the transformer loss
of life and the customer satisfaction. Base load prediction is
used to assist the charging control. The charging control strat-
egy is designed for real-time implementation, thus the actual
PEV plug-in time, departing time, and actual battery SoC are
considered in the control strategy operation.
To validate the transformer thermal model used in this
paper, a 25 kVA residential distribution transformer is used
for thermal tests. Instead of using fiber optics and the ac
power environment, thermocouples are used to measure the
oil and winding temperature in an equivalent dc environment.
So far, two hypodermic probe needles are used to measure
the top-winding temperature, due to the difficulty in placing
655
the needles on the hot-spot of winding. The model parameters
are fitted based on the measured top-oil, winding temperature
responses. The base load prediction-based control strategy is
also validated using the measured winding temperature. The
advantage of the control strategy in reducing the load peak is
obvious from the test results.
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Qiuming Gong (M’07) received the B.S. degree
in automotive engineering from Jilin University,
Changchun, China, in 2003, and the M.S. and
Ph.D. degrees in mechanical engineering from the
University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee, Milwaukee,
WI, USA, and Ohio State University, Columbus,
OH, USA, in 2007 and 2012, respectively.
He is currently an Electrified Vehicle System
Engineer with Ford Motor Company, Dearborn, MI,
USA, where he researches advanced electrified pow-
ertrain systems of Ford electrified vehicles. He was a
Graduate Research Associate at the Center for Automotive Research, at Ohio
State University, where he focused on plug-in electric vehicle (PEV) con-
trol and charging-related research from 2009 to 2012. His current research
interests include control and optimization of PEVs, and its integration with
transportation and power sectors. He has authored over 30 peer-reviewed pub-
lications.
Dr. Gong was the recipient of the Ford Internal Go Further Award in 2014.
He is a member of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers and the
Society of Automotive Engineers. He is also a technical track Co-Chair of
the IEEE Transportation Electrification Conference and Expo (ITEC) and the
Expert Panel Organizer/Moderator on vehicle-to-grid (V2G) of ITEC 2014.
Shawn Midlam-Mohler received the Ph.D.
degree in mechanical engineering from Ohio State
University (OSU), Columbus, OH, USA, in 2005.
He is currently an Assistant Professor of
Practice with the Department of Mechanical and
Aerospace Engineering, an Associate Director of
the Simulation Innovation and Modeling Center,
the Director of the Motorsports Program, and an
Associate Fellow with the Center for Automotive
Research at OSU. He is also the lead Advisor of
OSU’s successful EcoCAR team and has a broad
interest in the area of sustainable energy. His current research interests
include the area of model-based design of complex systems with a focus
on advanced automotive powertrain systems, courses related to automotive
topics in the thermal and fluid sciences, as well as senior capstone design,
project management, and systems engineering. He has authored over 60
peer-reviewed publications and holds several patents.
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON SMART GRID, VOL. 6, NO. 2, MARCH 2015
Emmanuele Serra received the B.S., M.S., and
Ph.D. degrees from the University of L’Aquila,
L’Aquila, Italy, in 2003, 2006, and 2011, respec-
tively, all in control and computer engineering.
Since 2012, he has been a Post-Doctoral
Research Fellow with the Department of Electrical
and Information Engineering, Center of Excellence
Design Methodologies of Embedded Controllers,
Wireless Interconnect and System-On-Chip,
University of L’Aquila. Post-Doctoral Research
Fellow at the Ohio State University Center for
Automotive Research, Columbus, OH, USA. His current research interests
include the characterization of the impact of plug-in electric vehicles (PEVs)
on the electric grid, the energy management systems at the household level
and at the neighborhood level, hybrid and control systems, and networked
control systems with a focus on failure detection and identification.
Vincenzo Marano received the B.S., M.S.,
(cum laude) and Ph.D. degrees from the University
of Salerno (UNISA), Fisciano, Italy, in 2003 and
2007, respectively, all in mechanical engineering.
In 2005, he joined the Ohio State University
Center for Automotive Research (OSU CAR),
Columbus, OH, USA, as a Visiting Scholar, and
was promoted to a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow,
a Research Associate, and a Senior Research
Associate in 2008, 2009, and 2010, respectively.
From 2008 to 2013, he was a Program Manager at
the SMART@CAR Consortium, an international collaborative research and
development program, OSU CAR, where he focused on PEVs and intelligent
charging, sponsored by the major automotive original equipment manufac-
turers and electric utilities. In 2012, he joined the Department of Industrial
Engineering, UNISA, as a Research Associate, and since 2014, he has been
serving as a Local Coordinator of the CO2 Reduction Laboratory (a joint lab-
oratory Magneti Marelli—UNISA). His current research interests include the
broad areas of energy systems and alternative vehicles, PEVs, energy storage,
energy management, control strategies for plug-in hybrid electric vehicles, and
their interaction with renewable energy sources and the grid. He has authored
over 70 scientific publications, and regularly serves as a reviewer for ISI jour-
nals and international conferences organized by the Society of Automotive
Engineers (SAE), the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME),
and IEEE, and has been an invited speaker at the International Panels on
Sustainable Transportation and Renewable Energy. In 2014, he was appointed
as a Research Fellow at the Center for Automotive and Mobility Innovation,
Università Ca’ Foscari, Venice, Italy. He manages research and development
efforts, and is responsible for establishing/developing relationships with poten-
tial and existing sponsors.
Dr. Marano is an ASME and SAE member.
Giorgio Rizzoni (F’04) received the B.S., M.S., and
Ph.D. degrees from the University of Michigan, Ann
Arbor, MI, USA, in 1980, 1982, and 1986, respec-
tively, all in electrical and computer engineering.
From 1986 to 1990, he was a Post-Doctoral
Fellow, a Lecturer, and an Assistant Research
Scientist at the University of Michigan. In 1990,
he joined the Department of Mechanical (now
Mechanical and Aerospace) Engineering at Ohio
State University, Columbus, OH, USA, as an
Assistant Professor. He was promoted to Associate
Professor in 1995 and to Professor in 2000. He was appointed as the
Director of the Center for Automotive Research in 1999. Since 2002, he
has been a Chair in Electromechanical Systems at Ford Motor Company,
Dearborn, MI, and also became a Professor in the Department of Electrical
and Computer Engineering. His current research interests include sustainable
and safe mobility.
Prof. Rizzoni was the recipient of numerous teaching and research
awards, including the Stanley Harrison Award for Excellence in Engineering
Education, and the National Science Foundation Presidential Young
Investigator Award for his specialization in dynamic systems and control.
He is a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers and the
Society of Automotive Engineers.