Coordinated optimal planning of electric vehicle charging stations and capacitors in distribution systems with vehicle-to-grid facility

Deployment of electric vehicles as a future mode of transport is essential to lower the greenhouse gas emissions and other harmful gases instigated by conventional engine driven vehicles. Installation of electric vehicle charging stations are one of the prominent aspects for the widespread use of electric vehicles. Improper positioning of electric vehicle charging station creates challenges which in turn affect the electrical network and utility operator. This paper presents a new hybrid approach for investigating the optimal location of electric vehicle charging stations. Reactive power compensation is also provided along with charging station to deal with power loss issues and retain the distribution network's reliability. Moreover, vehicle to grid facility has been comprehensively considered in this paper. The proposed algorithm is the hybrid of grey wolf optimization and particle swarm optimization. The hybridization of two algorithms combines the desirable attributes of both algorithms and maintains a strong balance between the exploration and exploitation capability. The proposed hybrid approach is applied on IEEE-33 bus and 34-bus distribution system for minimizing the active power loss and maximizing the net profit. Furthermore, the outcome attained using the anticipated technique is equated with conventional grey wolf optimization (GWO). For 33-bus system, the proposed technique results in loss reduction of 30.67% and maximizing the net profit by 1142.91$ as compared to GWO. Likewise, power losses have been reduced to 27.6% and maximized net profit by 4111.74$ for 34-bus network. The obtained results prove the supremacy of the proposed approach over grey wolf optimization to evaluate locations of charging stations' and reactive power source in radial distribution network.