Determining optimal location and size of PEV fast-charging stations in coupled transportation and power distribution networks considering power loss and traffic congestion

The placement and sizing of plug-in electric vehicle fast-charging stations (PEVF-CS) can significantly influence traffic flow in urban transportation networks. Consequently, suboptimal choices regarding the location and size of PEVF-CSs may lead to increasing travel time and traffic congestion in transportation networks and deterioration of the power quality indexes in power distribution networks. Also, each PEVF-CS is equipped with power electronic converters that can be used as power line conditioners and active filters to compensate for the reactive power and current harmonic components due to nonlinear loads and reduce the power loss. Thus, PEVF-CSs can improve the voltage profile, decrease voltage THD, and reduce the power loss in power distribution networks. Accordingly, this paper develops a mixed-integer linear programming model (MILP) to determine the optimal locations and sizes of PEVF-CSs. In addition, the proposed model considers traffic congestion and power quality in the coupled transportation and power distribution networks. The model considers various load profiles and origin-destination demands to address the different operational aspects of transportation and power distribution networks. The main features of the proposed model are 1- road congestion reduction, 2- traveling time reduction, 3- power loss reduction, and 4- power quality improvement. The proposed model is implemented using GAMS software and applied to different-scale test systems in different scenarios. The results show that the proposed method decreases traffic congestion and improves power quality.