Power quality impacts of high-penetration electric vehicle stations and renewable energy-based generators on power distribution systems Masoud Farhoodnea ⇑ , Azah Mohamed, Hussain Shareef, Hadi Zayandehroodi Department of Electrical, Electronic and Systems Engineering, University Kebangsaan Malaysia, Bangi, Selangor, Malaysia article info Article history: Received 12 January 2013 Received in revised form 23 March 2013 Accepted 17 April 2013 Available online 3 May 2013 Keywords: Electric vehicle stations Fuel cell Photovoltaic Power quality Renewable energy Renewable energy generator Wind farm abstract High-penetration renewable energy-based generators (REGs) in distribution systems have increased the importance of impact assessment involving these systems. This assessment focuses on power quality (PQ) and compatibility between REGs and existing system compo- nents. Electric vehicle (EV) technology has also recently achieved a substantial market share. This technology requires the development of charging stations similar to current petroleum fuelling stations in the near future. Thus, the effect of EV stations (EVSs) on PQ must also be considered. This study presents a PQ analysis on the effects of high-penetration EVS and REG systems, including wind turbines, grid-connected photovoltaics (PVs), and fuel cell (FC) power generation units on a modified 16-bus distribution system under different loading and weather conditions. All data on EVS, wind farm, PV, and FC units as well as weather conditions presented in this paper were collected from different power companies and the Malaysian Meteorological Department. The system is modelled and simulated using the MATLAB/Simulink software to study the effects of these technologies on system performances at various penetration levels. Simulation results indicated that the presence of high-penetration EVSs and REGs can cause severe PQ problems such as frequency and voltage fluctuations, voltage drop, harmonic distortion and power factor reduction. Ó 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Power systems have been conventionally designed for unidirectional power flows from the main source, distrib- uted downstream at lower voltage levels. The increasing number of customers willing to install distributed genera- tion (DG) to provide part of their power consumption indi- cates that DG has gained more interest in the electricity market. Considering the environmental issues related to conventional power plants, especially CO 2 emission, utili- ties and customers have widely accepted the use of pollu- tion-free renewable energy-based generators (REGs), including photovoltaic (PV) system, wind turbine (WT) and fuel cells (FC), among others, as alternative sources of electricity [1]. Utility-scale hybrid REGs consisting of two or more energy conversion mechanisms are widely developed to overcome the limitations and improve the security and reliability levels of REGs as well as their inter- connected networks. The power plant in Zhangbei, China is an example of a utility-scale hybrid REG with a 100 MW wind turbine, a 40 MW PV, and 20 MW to 36 MW battery storage. The Les Borges Blanques Power Plant, Spain is an- other example of a utility-scale hybrid REG based power plant. The system is composed of 36 MW biomass and 22.5 MW solar CSP power generation, and is able to pro- duce 101.6 GWh of electricity per year [2]. Economic and operational advantages provided by REGs for distribution systems include the following: power bal- ance during peak demand, decreased occurrence of power interruptions and system outages, reduction in investment and operational costs due to flexible capacity and location 0263-2241/$ - see front matter Ó 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.measurement.2013.04.032 ⇑ Corresponding author. Tel.: +60 1112800403. E-mail addresses: farhoodnea_masoud@yahoo.com (M. Farhoodnea), azah@eng.ukm.my (A. Mohamed), hussain_ln@yahoo.com (H. Shareef), h.zayandehroodi@yahoo.com (H. Zayandehroodi). Measurement 46 (2013) 2423–2434 Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect Measurement journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/measurement