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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER SYSTEMS 1

Applications of Probability Model to Analyze

the Effects of Electric Vehicle Chargers
on Distribution Transformers
Jason M. Sexauer, Member, IEEE, Kerry D. McBee, Member, IEEE, and Kelly A. Bloch, Member, IEEE

Abstract—Society’s increased concern over green house gas and [4]. The effects on electric distribution systems were ana-
emission and the reduced cost of electric vehicle technologies has lyzed in [1], with major emphasis placed on distribution trans-
increased the number of electric vehicles (EV) and plug-in hybrid formers, cable systems, and switches. The increased burden due
vehicles on the road. Previous studies into the effects of electric
vehicles on the electric system have focused on transmission, to EV chargers causing faster loss of life in distribution trans-
generation, and the loss of life of distribution transformers. This formers is addressed in [5]. While the reduced loss of life of a
paper focuses specifically on identifying distribution transformers distribution transformer due to EV chargers is a long-term ef-
that are most susceptible to excessive loading due to the implemen- fect, in the short term, EV chargers may result in a high number
tation of electric vehicles. The authors use a binomial probability of blown transformer fuses due to the excessive loading that
model to calculate the probability that a specific distribution
transformer will experience excessive loading. Variables to the may occur during peak periods. This can result in an increased
function include the existing peak transformer demand, number number of customer outages.
of customers connected to the transformer, and the most common The North American Standard SAEJ1772 categorizes EV
EV charger demand. Also included in the paper is an optimization chargers into three different operating groups, commonly
approach that utilizes the results from the binomial function referred to as Level 1, Level 2, and Level 3 [6]. The power
to determine the optimal replacement strategy to minimize re-
placement costs. An extension of the approach is also utilized to drawn from these chargers can range between 1 kW and 240
explore the effectiveness of EV targeted demand side management kW for periods between 30 min and 7 h, although most Level
programs. The authors apply the described algorithms to 75 000 1 and 2 chargers will not exceed a peak demand of 10 kW [6].
distributions transformers within a distribution system located in Studies have shown the peak charging period of EV chargers,
Denver, Colorado. if not controlled by the utility company, will likely occur after
Index Terms—Binomial distribution, demand side management, 5 p.m. and may coincide with existing customer load peaks,
distribution planning, distribution transformers, electric vehicles. thereby significantly increasing the maximum power draw of
the distribution transformer [1], [5], [7]. For transformers that
have a peak demand that is near or above its rated capacity, the
I. INTRODUCTION addition of several chargers can push the total demand above
its fuse ratings. These ratings typically range between 180%
and 300% depending upon transformer size, available fuse size,

T HE increased concern about reducing green house gas and protection scheme [8]. Therefore identifying transformers
emissions has led to the continued increase in the number that are susceptible to excessive loading due to EV can have an
of pure electric vehicles and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles on impact on preventing future customer outages.
the road. These vehicles, which the authors will refer to as elec- In the late 1990s, Xcel Energy experienced a high number
tric vehicles (EVs), can increase mileage by 60% given the same of distribution transformer failures caused from unexpected
amount of primary energy [1]. The number of electric vehicles loading that was due to widespread implementation of air
will continue to grow over the next 20 years, at which time EVs conditioning units. Prior to this period most homes were not
may comprise as much as 50% of new vehicle purchases [2]. equipped with central air conditioning units and relied upon low
Studies have been performed over the last decade to deter- energy demand swamp coolers. During this AC implementa-
mine the effects of EV chargers on the electric power system. tion period, the number of failed transformers due to excessive
EV effects on generation and transmission were studied in [3] loading averaged approximately 600 (1% of all transformers)
annually, which also contributed to approximately 84 000
customer outage minutes annually.
Manuscript received October 28, 2011; revised February 17, 2012 and April Considering that transformers can serve as many as 20 house-
24, 2012; accepted May 30, 2012. Paper no. TPWRS-00981-2011. holds, the probability of a transformer being overloaded or re-
J. M. Sexauer and K. D. McBee are with the Colorado School of Mines,
sulting in an unplanned outage due to fuse-blowing during peak
Golden, CO 80401 USA and Xcel Energy, Denver, CO 80223 USA (e-mail:
[email protected]; [email protected]). hours can be significant if the utility does not incorporate de-
K. A. Bloch is with Xcel Energy, Denver, CO 80223 USA (e-mail: Kelly. mand side management programs to control charging times. An-
[email protected]).
other approach utilities can employ to avoid excessive distribu-
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this paper are available online
at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org. tion transformer loading due to EV penetration is to identify the
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TPWRS.2012.2210287 transformers that have the highest probability of overload based

0885-8950/$31.00 © 2012 IEEE

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2 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER SYSTEMS

on existing peak demand, number of connected customers, and The most accurate means to forecast load growth is through
the most common EV charger size. simulations-based methods that attempt to predict the size of
In this paper, the authors describe a novel load forecasting the increased demand along with the causes of the increased
approach that utilizes a binomial distribution to identify trans- demand that include economic growth, historical data, and
formers that have a high probability of being overloaded with customer type. Because of the accuracy associated with this
the addition of one or several EV chargers. Variables to the func- approach if applied correctly and the intensive effort required
tion include the peak transformer demand, the number of cus- to apply, the simulation-based approach is typically applied
tomers served by the transformer, and the most common size to long-term planning. Unfortunately the simulation approach
of an EV charger. Existing load growth forecasting approaches heavily relies upon historical data and information regarding
along with their validity for application to EV demand growth the causes of load growth, such the methods described in [13],
are discussed in Section II. The binomial model is described which in the case of the paper would be increased EV pene-
in detail in Section III. Section IV illustrates the application of tration. Aspects that affect EV penetration include customer
the binomial function to determine the total number of suscep- acceptance, purchase costs, and government subsidies, all of
tible distribution transformers located in Denver, Colorado. This which are difficult to predict for long-term planning on small
section also illustrates the use of a binomial function to opti- spatial levels [2], [9]. Because of the lack of information re-
mize replacement strategy and evaluate demand side manage- garding the attributes that drive EV penetration growth, the load
ment (DSM) programs. demanded by future EV chargers can be considered “causal”
event loads in that more information regarding the driving
II. EXISTING APPROACHES TO FORECASTING factors are required to make accurate long-term forecasts for
Evaluating the impact of EVs on the existing distribution in- specific areas.
frastructure will require planning engineers to forecast the load The approach described in the paper, which would be consid-
growth associated with EV charger demand. As always, the ered a high resolution spatial forecasting analysis, is sufficient
three most important questions that planning engineers must an- for a stand alone analysis or as an input to the simulation-based
swer are [9]: approach method, where historical growth information is un-
1) “Where” will the system be impacted by the increased load known or nonexistent. Instead of trying to predict growth based
demand? on historical growth data, the authors have developed an ap-
2) “When” will the impact occur? proach that calculates the probability of impact on utility de-
3) “What are the costs” associated with the impact? vices based on their existing peak demand, number of connected
To answer these questions, planning engineers must rely upon customers, which accounts for the possibility of growth, and a
load growth forecasting techniques. Such prediction techniques given EV penetration rate, which if applied to future EV growth
can consist of short-term forecasting, which extends between 1 predictions can determine “when” a device is impacted. Once
and 6 years, and long-term forecasting, which can span over the probability of impact is derived through the binomial distri-
20 years [9], [10]. Because the EV penetration growth para- bution function described in the following section, an economic
digm is being developed, it is unknown if evaluating the im- impact study is performed to the answer the question of “how
pact of EVs requires long-term or short-term forecasting. Vari- much” will the load growth cost. However, before evaluations
ables such as customer acceptance and available capacity of are performed to answer “when” and “how much,” distribution
the existing system infrastructure will dictate whether short- engineers must first determine “where” will the impacts occur.
or long-term forecasting is required for a specific geographical
location. However, because there is so little historical data re- III. PROBABILISTIC MODEL
garding a continuously increasing EV penetration, existing tech- For a distribution planner to answer the question of “where”
niques for forecasting, long-term or short-term, may not be ap- will the system be impacted, they must first determine if
plicable. specific devices are susceptible to overloading due to the
Trending is the most common approach to short-term load increased demand. Although there are many devices on the
growth forecasting [9]. Utilizing a spatial approach, which di- distribution system that may be impacted by EV penetration
vides larger service areas into smaller and discreet areas based growth, the authors are focusing on evaluating the suscepti-
on customer class or type, city, subdivision, or geographical lo- bility of distribution transformers, or in layman’s terms, which
cation, distribution planners match historical load growth infor- distribution transformers on the existing system are susceptible
mation to growth curves that predict future growth [10]–[12]. to overloading based on their existing available capacity and
The approach typically utilizes multiple regression curve-fit- number of residential customers, which represents growth
ting techniques that depend on historical data just to initiate. potential. Load growth is ignored in the calculations because
Because so little information is known about EV penetration this occurrence is typically the result of new subdivision de-
growth, even if these approaches are applied, the results would velopments and/or new business, which require the installation
be subject to inaccuracies. Another problem with applying these of new distribution transformers. The authors have chosen to
trending approaches is that they can be significantly inaccurate identify these susceptible transformers by utilizing a binomial
at high resolution spatial forecasting, which hinders the eval- distribution function.
uation of the impact of small distribution areas such as sec- The probabilistic model considered for this paper is founded
ondary service conductors and distribution transformers, which in binomial distribution theory. The model describes the prob-
may only consist of several customers [9]. ability of a distribution transformer overloading due to connec-
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SEXAUER et al.: APPLICATIONS OF PROBABILITY MODEL TO ANALYZE THE EFFECTS 3

tion of new EV. The authors define overload as the limit in the transformer, a peak demand that blows protection fuses
which the loading on a transformer exceeds acceptable levels, will result in added operational cost that a utility company
which could be well above the nameplate rating. After a brief in- will typically mitigate by upgrading the transformer to prevent
troduction to the binomial random variable, the specific methods future costs and prevent customer outages [9], [15]–[19]. Many
needed to use the distribution are explored. Finally, the assump- utility companies utilize a predetermined loading limit with
tions taken to use this distribution are enumerated. and without a duration threshold to determine if a transformer
requires upgrading due to load [20]. Although these limits may
A. Mathematical Introduction to the Binomial Distribution not be able to identify that a specific transformer will have a
A binomial random variable describes the number of “suc- shorten life due to loading above threshold limits, for a large
cesses” expected from a series of trials. An experiment such as population size they have proven to minimize the customer
“What are the chances of seeing three heads when flipping five impact to failed transformers and outages due to repeated
fair coins?” is described using a binomially distributed random blown fuses.
variable [8], [14]. An additional option for establishing the peak demand is
The probability mass function of a binomial random variable based on the protection scheme of distribution transformer.
is as follows: Transformer fusing is generally based on two principles. The
first is to protect the transformer from experiencing loading
(1) that can significantly reduce the life of the transformer. Fuses
rated for this type of protection typically ranges between
where is the probability of successes in trials, 150%–250% of nameplate [21]. In the last 15 years, many
each with a probability of [14]. utility companies have incorporated a second type of pro-
tection philosophy which is more focused on protecting the
B. Creation of Transformer Overloading Model
entire distribution system from transformer failures instead of
To describe the probability of several EV being connected preventing the transformer from failing [20]. These fuses are
to a transformer, a binomial random variable as in (1) is used. typically sized between 180%–300% depending upon available
The number of trials is the total number of households con- sizes. The one thing that both of these approaches have in
nected to a given transformer. The probability of a single cus- common is that they result in unplanned customers outages and
tomer choosing to connect an EV to the transformer is . then the replacement of distribution transformers if loading limits
describes the probability that electric vehicles are on the trans- are exceeded [7].
former. From a distribution system planning perspective, either one of
However, interest is not in the probability of electric vehi- these limits would be sufficient for application to the acceptable
cles being on the transformer, but the probability that the trans- peak loading of transformer. Because the probability density
former experiences excessive loading due to electric vehicles. function is utilized to predict which transformers are likely to
To find this, the parameters of the distribution function need to experience adverse loading that impact customer reliability and
be adjusted so that the number of electric vehicles that can be operational costs, employing the existing company guidelines
placed on the transformer before it overloads can be found. This for identifying overloaded transformers is paramount. Although
number is a function of , the peak demand of the transformer; these limits may not necessarily reflect the actual aging of the
, the acceptable limit to which a transformer can be loaded; distribution transformer, they will reflect the loading limits that
and , the peak demand of an electric vehicle charger. Let the typically impact customers and operational costs.
capacity for the number of EV that can be connected without The only exception would be in cases where fuse sizes are
overloading the transformer be : near 300% of the nameplate rating. Although the fuses will not
operate until loading reaches these high levels, liquid immersed
(2) transformers began to experience oil degradation at much lower
loads, which can ultimately reduce the operating capacity of
where the transformer and make them more susceptible to failure due
maximum number of EVs that can be connected to EV charger loading at lower loading levels [21]–[23]. The
to a transformer before acceptable loading limit is reduced capacity can result in failures although loading never
exceeded; reached 300%. Therefore utilizing this as an upper threshold
acceptable peak demand on transformer; would lead to a forecast that identifies fewer transformers than
existing peak demand on transformer; actual. The level in which oil degradation occurs is a function
of the oil type, loading, and environmental conditions, therefore
average peak demand of an EV charger.
the acceptable peak loading that reflects this oil characteristics
The peak acceptable demand on a distribution transformer is must be location dependant.
an arbitrary value that represents the loading on a transformer The demand of the most commonly utilized EV chargers has
that “may” lead to blown fuses, distribution transformers with yet to be determined due to the current low implementation rate.
shortened lives, and customer outages if not addressed. Al- As mentioned previously, EV chargers can demand anywhere
though the loading of EV chargers may only result in adverse between 1 kW and 240 kW depending upon the level of charger
transformer loading during a short period of time, such as in [5]. When considering driving distance and the required home
the summer, which may not significantly reduce the age of electric upgrades for Level 3 chargers, the current consensus is
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4 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER SYSTEMS

that the most commonly utilized chargers will be a Level 2 and

draw any between 2 kW and 7 kW.
The value for is a worst-case number, as it assumes no
load diversity within the collection of EV chargers as well as
the existing coincident load. It also assumes that all EVs will be
charging at rated demand during peak loading.
Let be the number of electric vehicles that are connected
to the transformer, i.e., where is
the total possible number of electric vehicles that can be con-
nected to the transformer. For simplicity, the authors assume
that only one EV is connected per customer household, which
is currently the common perception of implementation. There-
fore is equivalent to the number of homes connected to a
transformer. For this scenario, the function is expanded by set- Fig. 1. Illustration of the predicted moderate growth rate of EV penetration in
ting equal to the number of homes connected to the trans- Colorado as a percentage of the total passenger vehicles registered.
former multiplied by the average number of EVs per residence.
As penetration of EVs grows, it may be necessary to incorporate
more than one vehicle per customer. Once the transformers with the highest probability of failure
Let be a binomial random variable with trials with have been determined based on , planning engineers must esti-
the probability of a single household connecting an EV, i.e., mate “when” the results will come to fruition. The authors define
. As such, the probability that a transformer is as the probability that a single customer will connect an EV to
at its maximum capacity of EVs is the probability vehicles his or her transformer. Utilizing simple probability, can also be
are on a transformer, described by (3): considered the EV penetration for a given customer population
size (i.e., 10%, 20%, and 30%) [14]. Currently, little is known
about the relationship between utility customer and EV own-
ership. Therefore, it is wise to analyze the binomial functions
(3) utilizing multiple penetration levels. To determine the year in
where which the results of each analysis will occur, a utility can apply
predictions for future registered vehicles in a given area to ap-
proximate the year. As EV penetration increases and more is
probability mass function;
known about the EV customer demographic, it may be possible
maximum number of EVs that can connect to to customize for specific neighborhoods or subdivisions.
transformer before acceptable loading limit is Several entities have performed studies to predict the sale and
exceeded; registration of EVs throughout the U.S. [6]. Several studies in-
maximum possible number of EVs per clude aggressive, moderate, and mild penetration scenarios for
transformer; the next 50 years. To determine the year in which the analysis
the probability that single residential customer
results for a given will occur, is converted from EV penetra-
will charge an EV during peak loading.
tion per total customers to EV penetration per total vehicles
However, interest is not in if a transformer is at capacity, but registered in the given area . Fig. 1 illustrates the EV pen-
if it is overloaded. As such, any ranging from the minimum etration rate per vehicles registered in Colorado up to 2030. For
number of EVs that will cause an overload, , up to example, in Xcel Energy’s Colorado operating area a penetra-
must be considered. As such, the cumulative distribution tion of is equivalent to approximately 300 000 EVs.
function for a binomially distributed random variable is used, Dividing this value by the total registered vehicles in Xcel’s Col-
which describes . The cumulative distribution is orado territory equates to equal to 15%, which is predicted
the sum of all for . This to occur in 2024.
shows the probability of a transformer being at or below full System planners can also utilize as an indicator to extend or
loading. The complement probability is used to find the value move forward the forecasted impact date. As more information
of interest . becomes available regarding customer acceptance and overall
As such, the probability of a transformer overloading due to implementation, more detailed penetration growth curves that
electric vehicle charging is given by (4): are geographically dependant will be developed. Although the
penetration rate growth forecasts may change from what is
expected today, the results of the binomial distribution func-
tion will remain the same with only the expected impact date
changing.
(4)
C. Assumptions Needed for Binomial Model
where is the complement of the cumulative dis- To use a binomial distribution, several assumptions must be
tribution. considered. Mathematically, the events in the sample space must
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SEXAUER et al.: APPLICATIONS OF PROBABILITY MODEL TO ANALYZE THE EFFECTS 5

be independent and have consistent probability, meaning that

the outcome of one event does not affect the uniform proba-
bility of other events occurring in the sample space. In the con-
text of the problem at hand, this assumes that the probability
of the event of one customer connecting an electric vehicle to
the grid is independent of his neighbor’s choice to do so. While
this may not be the case because of phenomena like “keeping up
with Joneses,” this can be dealt with macroscopically (utilizing
different ’s for different subdivisions and areas as described in
the previous section).
Secondly, all events must be binary, meaning they can only
succeed or fail and the probability of a success is the comple-
ment of the probability of a failure. Subtly contained within this
assumption is that all EV utilize identical charging technology.
This is because the event being studied is “does a customer have
an EV?” For a multiple-charging technology scenario, the out- Fig. 2. Probability of overload for the nearly 45 000 25-kVA transformers in
comes for the event become “No,” “Yes, a type A charger,” and Xcel Energy service area in Denver, CO for conservative, moderate, and aggres-
“Yes, a type B charger.” These outcomes are mutually exclu- sive EV adoption scenarios. The horizontal line indicated the threshold
and the vertical line indicate the versus boundary for the aggressive
sive and cover the full sample space; as such this event would model at a proactive replacement value that is 15% of the reactive re-
not meet the binary event criterion. placement cost .
This assumption stands in contradiction to the literature, such
as [6], which indicates several charging options are likely to
come to market. However, to simplify analysis the assumption overall impact. Future work will include extending this analysis
of identical charging technologies must be made. For scenarios from the assessment of distribution transformers’ loading to the
in which multiple charging options need to be considered, a assessment of fuse sizing, lateral loading, secondary loading,
weighted average of their demand based off their penetration and substation bank issues.
percentages were used in the analysis, resulting in a loss of
fidelity. A more rigorous treatment would be to do a nested A. Expected Number of Transformer Replacements
binomial analysis, as is done with the EV DSM. However, a In order to gain an idea of the possible best and worst case
weighted average is realistic enough to give a ballpark estimate scenarios, several factors were varied. One factor was the class
of the effects of a mixed charger scenario. of chargers used, which included Level 1 (1.2 kW), a low Level
Likewise, the possibility of different charging times and 2 charger (3.8 kW) [6], and a mixture of both classes using the
state-of-charge raise the possibility of the event being non-bi- weighted average method described previously. Also varied
nary due to the chargers being non-coincident. Assuming the were the EV penetration percentages, which spanned between
probability of this occurring could be formulated, the fact that 10% to 30%. A total of 15 scenarios were considered for the
this causes the random variable to be non-binary can worked various transformer sizes in Xcel Energy’s fleet to gain an idea
around in an identical fashion to how demand side management of the possible extreams that EV penetration effects could have.
is handled in Section IV-C, as the goal of DSM is to create such However, such a large number of scenarios proved cumbersome
a diverse charging condition. Because such diversity is not the to work with, so three representative scenarios—conservative
primary way in which EV charging manifests—that is to say (Level 1 chargers at 10% penetration), moderate (25%/75%
the EV charging clumps around peak loading [1], [5], [7]—the Level 1/Level 2 charger mix at 20% penetration), and aggres-
binary RV assumption holds, with the caveats discussed above sive (level 2 chargers at 30% penetration)—were chosen. The
which could be addressed to further improve the model. acceptable load limit was 180%, which coincides with protec-
tion fuse size. If a transformer is loaded beyond 180% it needs
IV. APPLICATIONS OF THE MODEL to be replaced to accommodate increased EV demand. Fig. 2
With a model which is capable of describing the overload shows the conservative, moderate, and aggressive scenarios for
probability of a transformer, several analyses can be performed the 25-kVA transformer class.
to determine the monetary impacts of high EV implementa- The expected transformer replacement rates for a scenario
tion as a function of EV penetration rates. The costs associated is simply the area under the curve. For the three generalized
with EV penetration include determining the expected trans- scenarios, they are 1485, 3497, and 6441 transformers or 3.64%,
former replacement rate, the effectiveness of proactive replace- 8.58%, and 15.8% for conservative, moderate, and aggressive,
ment program, and the effectiveness of a DSM program. respectively.
These analyses were performed on residential customers in
the Denver area served by Xcel Energy. The sample included B. Optimal Proactive and Reactive Replacement
nearly 75 000 transformers and 550 000 customers across 400 A natural use of this statistical model is to explore if a proac-
feeders. The goal was determine how many transformers will tive transformer replacement program should be implemented.
be overloaded at multiple EV penetration rates and if a proac- In a proactive replacement scenario, transformers with a prob-
tive replacement program or DSM program would minimize the ability of excessive loading over a certain threshold would be
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6 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER SYSTEMS

replaced proactively, hoping to gain some sort of salvage value

and reduce the cost due to overloads and outages. The question
then becomes what is this probability of overload threshold at
which to proactively replace equipment?
Consider a population of five transformers which have an
overload probability, as calculated by (4), to be 90%, 70%, 50%,
30%, and 10%. Assume the (potentially sub-optimal) replace-
ment strategy is to replace transformers with at least a 70%
chance of overload; two transformers (the 90% and 70% ones)
would be replaced proactively and we would expect to replace
0.9 transformers reactively (the expected number of failures for
the three remaining transformers, i.e., ). In this
way, the number of transformers to replace proactively and reac-
tively can be found. Several of the results for various thresholds
need to be calculated in order to create a foundation on which
to find the optimal replacement strategy.
Fig. 3. Nominal transformer replacement cost as a function of proactive re-
To find the optimal replacement strategy, an optimization placement rate for the 15% salvage value scenario. The optimal proactive
must be formulated to minimize the costs of proactive and rate is the value which minimizes this function. The shaded region indicates the
reactive replacements considering the number of proactive beneficial region for the aggressive scenario. Replacement of transformers with
overload probabilities of more than 0.65 is beneficial, but 0.85 is optimal.
replacements with special deference for the expected value of
reactive replacements. Mathematically, this is formed as (5):
TABLE I
OPTIMAL PROBABILITY THRESHOLD AND TOTAL REPLACEMENT COST

(5)

where
is still optimal to let most transformers fail and replace them,
total costs of replacement for entire system ] retroactively.
expected value for the th transformer’s random
variable, per (4); C. Electric Vehicle Targeted Demand Side Management
number of transformers in population; Because of the long charging time of EVs and the temporal
number of reactive replacements; overlap between daily commutes and load peaks, it is likely
number of proactive replacements; that EVs will be coincident with the peak loading. However,
if a DSM program is implemented so that EV owners are incen-
reactive cost to replace a transformer;
tivized to not charge their vehicle during peak loading most of
value realized from a proactive replacement the capacity issues related to EVs could be minimized. To help
(planned and reduced outage time, salvage or establish what effects DSM programs might have, the baseline
redeployment value, etc.). model has been further refined to reflect DSM participation.
For a given overload probability (y-axis of Fig. 2), the cor- Recall that for each transformer, a binomial probability is cal-
responding transformer ordinal (x-axis of Fig. 2) provides the culated to determine if enough homes will get EVs to cause an
value of . To find , the curve is “integrated” (i.e., summed) overload. We now introduce a second, nested series of binomial
on the bounds to . In order to avoid a curve fit of Fig. 2 experiments to see, for households which have an EV, if they
and the nonlinearities that would result, the authors have opted participate in a DSM program. This model can then be used to
to bin in 1% increments the overload probability, find the cor- see to what degree curtailment from DSM will avert an over-
responding ’s and ’s, and solve the optimization numeri- load.
cally. Costs have also been per-unitized to where and Take for example a transformer with five homes on it which
is varied between 5% and 15% of . As such, any total also only has capacity for one electric vehicle, as described in
replacement value less than 1.0 is beneficial, though possibly Table II. Assume an EV penetration of 15% and a DSM par-
sub-optimal. The results are shown in Fig. 3. Table I shows the ticipation rate of 10%. To analyze the effectiveness of DSM, a
replacement rates for various as a percentage of replacement second series of four binomial probabilities must now be for-
costs and the per-unitized costs experienced at —the op- mulated, one for each event which causes an overload (i.e., for
timal replacement threshold. As can be seen, for even the most the events that 2 (event A), 3 (B), 4 (C), and 5 (D) households
aggressive scenario with a large proactive replacement value, it connect an EV):
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SEXAUER et al.: APPLICATIONS OF PROBABILITY MODEL TO ANALYZE THE EFFECTS 7

TABLE II
EXAMPLE OF DSM OUTCOMES FOR A TRANSFORMER WITH FIVE HOUSEHOLDS AND CAPACITY FOR ONE EV

, , .
Probability of specific event, i.e., , , etc. The sum of non-overloading events (i.e., the unlabeled events) is the probability of no overload because
of sufficient capacity, i.e., .
Probability of any DSM event occurring which averts an overload, i.e., , , etc.

A binomial random variable is created for each event. The

probability that enough people participate in EV DSM to cause
the transformer to not overload is the conditional probability
that EV DSM causes the transformer to not overload (event
) given that a number of EVs are connected which would
otherwise cause the transformer to overload (events A, B, C, and
D).
The law of total probability can now be applied to find the
Fig. 4. Effectiveness of DSM programs targeted at EV for the aggressive sce-
probability that DSM averts an overload using the conditional nario.
probabilities:

With these definitions, the probabilities of averted overloads

(6) due to capacity (event ) and DSM (event ) along with
overall overload (event ) are

(11)
(7)

Taking this probability with that calculated from the initial

model (of no overload because of enough capacity on the trans- (12)
former, event ), the total probability of no overload is (13)
found. The results for the five customer example is also given:
This analysis was performed on the Denver data for the three
EV penetration scenarios (conservative, moderate, and aggres-
(8) sive) and assumed DSM participation rates (0%, 10%, 20%, and
50% participation). As Fig. 4 shows, EV targeted DSM pro-
The general form of this process can be formulated as fol- duce substantial reductions in transformer replacements for the
lows. Let with successes in trials with aggressive EV penetration scenario. However, at the lower EV
probability . Then let penetration levels DSM is unlikely to provide much benefit. The
summary of these results are enumerated in Table III.
(9)
(10) V. CONCLUSION
The increased penetration of EVs may have a significant ef-
where is the probability mass function (PMF) and fect on distribution transformer loading. Utility companies must
is the cumulative density function (CDF). develop procedures or algorithms to identify these overload-
 This article has been accepted for inclusion in a future issue of this journal. Content is final as presented, with the exception of pagination.

8 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER SYSTEMS

TABLE III [12] E. P. Cody, “Load forecasting methods cuts time, cost,” Elect. World,
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[16] IEEE Guide for Loading Mineral-Oil-Immersed Transformers, IEEE
Std. C57.91-1999, 1999.
[17] IEEE Standard Test Procedure for Thermal Evaluation of Liquid-Im-
susceptible transformers before they result in a high number mersed Distribution and Power Transformers, IEEE Std. C57.100-
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served by said transformer, and average size of EV charger. Also Nonsinusoidal Load Currents, IEEE Std. C57.110-2008 (Revision of
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