August 4th 2021

Power Quality Online Event 2021 - Recap and recordings

On July 7 & 8 ElaadNL hosted a series of ten webinars featuring many experts from the field of Power Quality, sharing their best practices, views and knowledge. This second edition of the ElaadNL Webinar on EV charging best practices and Power Quality was a great success! The organization reflects upon a very interesting 2-day session with fruitful discussions and important recommendations from the presenters.

We would like to thank all the presenters for their contribution and enthusiasm and all attendees for their participation and interesting questions! We are looking forward to seeing you all in-person during next year’s session which will be organized at our new Testlab!

If you missed any of the presentations from this or last year, you can find them on our YouTube channel. Please subscribe to stay informed about new material! Below, you can find the descriptions and links to the different presentations from this year.

Day 1: Best practices

The first day started with an insightful presentation from our keynote Mark McGranaghan, from the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) about the changing nature of power quality and compatibility. He presented the current challenges on the topics of power systems and power quality and emphasizes the importance of monitoring power quality effects in customer installations.

Next, Maarten Jaspers and Guillaume Goijen from charge point operator Allego pointed out some of the challenges they face in the process of realizing DC fast-charging locations, especially outside The Netherlands. They concluded with 4 recommendations calling for international standardization and cooperation between the parties involved.

Next, Karima Boukir and Kevin Lorenzo from French DSO Enedis presented 6 recommendations for power quality and EV charging based on joint research between Enedis and ElaadNL. Most importantly, high frequency distortions and vehicles charging at powers below the maximum needs to be taken into account in testing and standardization.

Evangelos Kotsakis from the Joint Research Centre (JRC) in Ispra, Italy gave the 4th presentation of the first day, focussing on modelling and estimating the idle time of EVs at charging infrastructure, based on a large data-set from ElaadNL. Studies like this one can help in planning and prediction of future charging infrastructure needs, especially in populated areas.

The first day concluded with a presentation of Thijs van Wijk, manager of the ElaadNL testlab. He shared important best practices regarding smart charging and power quality, based on several years of research and testing on almost all publicly available EVs. Don’t assume that confirming to the standard guarantees that charging works flawlessly. And therefore; test! Bring your EV or equipment to the new ElaadNL testlab and it will be tested for free on power quality, smart charging and interoperability.

Day 2: Power Quality

The second day kicked-off with a joint presentation by Sharmistha Bhattacharya and Marvin Wijnand from one of largest DSOs of The Netherlands Enexis. They presented interesting results from several EV and PQ related projects and discussed the modelling and analysis of the large scale EV impact for the future distribution grids and the new challenges arising.

Helko van den Brom from the Dutch Metrology institute VSL discussed the lacking standardization in the range between DC and 150 kHz. He pointed out the need for standards regarding measurements but also regarding equipment immunity for future DC grids and regarding supraharmonics. For instance, smart meters can be vulnerable to disturbances caused by modern equipment, resulting in measurement errors.

Zian Qin from TU Delft gave insight in the power quality effects of EV charging stations from the power electronics and design perspective. He discussed the different circuits used and the components that can cause certain PQ effects in the grid. By using simulations in the design process, important insights are obtained in the evaluation of possible PQ effects of EV charging stations and this is of high importance.

Jil Sutaria from Lulea University of Technology presented results from research on the impact of supraharmonics and quasi-DC on the operation of residual current protection. She concludes with a set of recommendations regarding the clarification of standards describing tripping currents and calls for more research on the possible increase in 50 Hz tripping currents due to supraharmonics and 4 Hz components, which could result in a safety risk.

The second day concluded with a presentation by Tim Slangen from Eindhoven University of Technology about a measurement campaign on EV-fast chargers in The Netherlands. He discusses the challenges regarding the analysis and modelling of the supraharmonic emissions obtained in field measurements and ends with recommendations based on the obtained experience. Especially standardization on the measurement and analysis methods is needed to have comparable and representative results.

We are looking forward to next year in which we hope to organize a live or at least a hybrid event. If you want to know about our first edition in 2020, you can watch the recording here.