An Enhanced Pathfinder Algorithm for Optimal Integration of Solar Photovoltaics and Rapid Charging Stations in Low-Voltage Radial Feeders

Most low-voltage (LV) feeders have significant losses, poor voltage profiles, and inadequate stability margins owing to their radial construction and high R/X ratio branches, thus, they may not be able to handle substantial solar photovoltaics (SPVs) and EV penetration. Thus, optimal integration of SPVs and rapid charging stations (RCSs) can solve this problem. This paper offers an enhanced pathfinder algorithm (EPFA) with guiding elements and three followers' life lifestyle procedures based on animal foraging, exploitation, and killing. First, the EV load penetration was used to evaluate the feeder performance. Subsequently, the required RCSs and SPVs were appropriately integrated to match the EV load penetration and optimise feeder performance. An Indian 85-bus real-time system was used for simulations. The losses and GHG emissions increased by 150% and 80%, respectively, without the SPVs and RCS for zero-to-full EV load penetration. RCSs allocation alone reduced the losses by 40.1%, whereas simultaneous SPVs and RCSs allocation reduced the losses by 66%. However, the GHG emissions decreased by 13.7% and 54.33%, respectively. This study shows that SPVs and RCS can enhance the feeder performance both technically and environmentally. In contrast, EPFA outperformed the other algorithms in terms of the global solution and convergence time.