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Photovoltaic (PV) systems and electric vehicles (EVs) integrated in local distribution systems are considered to be two of the keys to a sustainable future built environment. However, large-scale integration of PV generation and EV charging loads poses technical challenges for the distribution grid. Each grid has a specific hosting capacity limiting the allowable PV and EV share. This paper presents a combined PV-EV grid integration and hosting capacity assessment for a residential LV distribution grid with four different energy management system (EMS) scenarios: (1) without EMS, (2) with EV smart charging only, (3) with PV curtailment only, and (4) with both EV smart charging and PV curtailment. The combined PV-EV hosting capacity is presented using a novel graphical approach so that both PV and EV hosting capacity can be analyzed within the same framework. Results show that the EV smart charging can improve the hosting capacity for EVs significantly and for PV slightly. While the PV curtailment can improve the hosting capacity for PV significantly, it cannot improve the hosting capacity for EVs at all. From the graphical analysis, it can be concluded that there is a slight positive correlation between PV and EV hosting capacity in the case of residential areas.

To evaluate the effects of different energy retrofit scenarios on the residential building sector, in this study, an urban building energy model (UBEM) was developed from open data, calibrated using energy performance certificates (EPCs), and validated against hourly electricity use measurement data. The calibrated and validated UBEM was used for implementing energy retrofit scenarios and improving the energy performance of the case study city of Varberg, Sweden. Additionally, possible consequences of the scenarios on the electricity grid were also evaluated in this study. The results showed that for a calibrated UBEM, the MAPE of the simulated versus delivered energy to the buildings was 26 %. Although the model was calibrated based on annual values from some of the buildings with EPCs, the validation ensured that it could produce reliable results for different spatial and temporal levels than calibrated for. Furthermore, the validation proved that the spatial aggregation over the city and temporal aggregation over the year could considerably improve the results. The implementation of the energy retrofit scenarios using the calibrated and validated UBEM resulted in a 43 % reduction of the energy use in residential buildings renovated based on the Passive House standard. If this was combined with the generation of on-site solar energy, except for the densely populated areas of the city, it was possible to reach near zero (and in some cases positive) energy districts. The results of grid simulation and power flow analysis for a chosen low-voltage distribution network indicated that energy retrofitting of buildings could lead to an increase in voltage by a maximum of 7 %. This particularly suggests that there is a possibility of occasional overvoltages when the generation and use of electricity are not in perfect balance.

The penetration of photovoltaic (PV) and electric vehicles (EVs) continues to grow and is predicted to claim a vital share of the future energy mix. It poses new challenges in the built environment, as both PV systems and EVs are widely dispersed in the electricity distribution system. One of the vital tools for analyzing these challenges is load flow analysis, which provides insights on power system performance. Traditionally, for simplicity, load flow analysis utilizes deterministic approaches and neglecting  correlation between units in the system. However, the growth of distributed PV systems and EVs increases the uncertainties and correlations in the power system and, hence, probabilistic methods are more appropriate.

This thesis contributes to the knowledge of how uncertainty and correlation models can improve the quality of load flow analysis for electricity distribution systems with large numbers of residential PV systems and EVs. The thesis starts with an introduction to probabilistic load flow analysis of future electricity distribution systems. Uncertainties and correlation models are explained, as well as two energy management system strategies: EV smart charging and PV curtailment. The probabilistic impact of these energy management systems in the electricity distribution system has been assessed through a comparison of allocation methods and correlation analysis of the two technologies.

The results indicate that these energy management system schemes improve the electricity distribution system performance. Furthermore, an increase in correlations between nodes is also observed due to these schemes. The results also indicate that the concentrated allocation has more severe impacts, in particular at lower penetration levels. Combined PV-EV hosting capacity assessment shows that a combination of EV smart charging with PV curtailment in all buildings can further improve the voltage profile and increase the hosting capacity.  The smart charging scheme also increased the PV hosting capacity slightly. The slight correlation between PV and EV hosting capacity shows that combined hosting capacity analysis of PV systems and EVs is beneficial and is suggested to be done in one framework. Overall, this thesis concludes that an improvement of uncertainty and correlation modeling is vital in probabilistic load flow analysis of future electricity distribution systems.

Urban demographics are changing, with more than half of the global population currently residing in urban areas. Traditionally, cities are often seen as passive energy consumers relying on external centralized systems. Motivated by the need to mitigate climate change, a shift is underway as cities actively shape energy systems. This shift involves decentralized power generation, electric vehicle (EV)-related electricity usage shifts, enhanced building energy efficiency, and increasing interaction between local power generation and load. This poses some challenges to distribution grid operation such as voltage violation, decreased power quality, equipment damage, power losses, and reliability issues. Addressing these issues requires load flow analysis, and to quantify the impacts based on load flow analysis, the hosting capacity concept has been introduced. Although traditional load flow analysis lacks uncertainty consideration, the growth of distributed photovoltaics (PV) generation and EVs demands enhanced accuracy through uncertainty modeling.

This thesis contributes to the knowledge of how uncertainty and correlation models can improve the quality of load flow and hosting capacity analysis for urban electricity distribution systems with high penetration of residential PV systems and EVs through the combination of methodological and case studies. Methodological studies propose uncertainty models for input variables and investigate their impact on load flow and hosting capacity assessment. Case studies demonstrate enhanced hosting capacity analysis quality through applied uncertainty models.

Results show that concentrated allocation of PV systems and EVs had more severe impacts, in particular at lower penetration levels, and smart charging in concentrated allocation had more significant benefits to reduce peak load and voltage drop. Results regarding residential building roofs show that the inclusion of more residential buildings when the PV penetration increases will require including a lot of less-optimal facets, and, hence, a novel method has been proposed to proportionally include less optimal roofs at every penetration level. The smart charging scheme, which has as its main objective to reduce the net-load variability, improves the electricity distribution system performance, and combined with PV curtailment, can further increase the hosting capacity. An increase in correlations between nodes is also observed due to this smart charging scheme. The city-level simulations show that the distribution system of the city can accommodate a 90% penetration level of PV with less than 1% risk of overvoltage and line loading does not limit the hosting capacity. The method used to model roof facet orientation proves effective for city level applications, given its simplicity and effectiveness.

In summary, this thesis concludes that the quality and knowledge of load flow and hosting capacity analysis for urban electricity distribution systems can be improved by several methods, including: the probabilistic model of PV power generation and EV charging profiles, the inclusion of EMS, the consideration of spatial allocation methods of PV and EV, the assessment of the correlation between PV and EV, and the consideration of rooftop tilt and azimuth uncertainties.

Several studies have presented electric vehicle smart charging schemes to increase the temporal matching between photovoltaic generation and electric vehicle charging, including a smart charging scheme with an objective to minimize the net-load variance. This method has proved, through simulations, that the self consumption could be increased, but the benefit of the approach has not been tested on a low voltage distribution system. To increase the quality of grid impact analyses of the smart charging scheme, probabilistic methods that include input and spatial allocation uncertainties are more appropriate. In this study, a probabilistic load flow analysis is performed by modelling the variability of electric vehicle mobility, household load, photovoltaic system generation, and the adoption of photovoltaic system and electric vehicle in society. The results show that the smart charging scheme improves the low voltage distribution system performance and increases the correlations between network nodes. It is also shown that concentrated allocation has more severe impacts, in particular at lower penetration levels. This paper can form the basis for the development of probabilistic impact analysis of smart charging to allow society to integrate more electric vehicles and photovoltaic systems for a more sustainable future.

The increasing trend of small-scale residential photovoltaic (PV) system installation in low-voltage (LV) distribution networks poses challenges for power grids. To quantify these impacts, hosting capacity has become a popular framework for analysis. However, previous studies have mostly focused on small-scale or test feeders and overlooked uncertainties related to rooftop azimuth and tilt. This paper presents a comprehensive evaluation of city-level PV hosting capacity using data from over 300 real LV systems in Varberg, Sweden. A previously developed rooftop azimuth and tilt model is also applied and evaluated. The findings indicate that the distribution systems of the city, with a definition of PV penetration as the percentage of houses with 12 kW installed PV systems, can accommodate up to 90\% PV penetration with less than 1\% risk of overvoltage, and line loading is not a limiting factor. The roof facet orientation modeling proves to be suitable for city-level applications due to its simplicity and effectiveness. Sensitivity studies reveal that PV size assumptions significantly influence hosting capacity analysis. The study provides valuable insights for planning strategies to increase PV penetration in residential buildings and offers technical input for regulators and grid operators to facilitate and manage residential PV systems.

One of the essential epistemic uncertainties that has not yet been studied enough for distributed photovoltaic systems is the azimuth and tilt of rooftop photovoltaic panels, as previous studies of grid impacts and hosting capacity have tended to assume uniform and optimal roof facet conditions. In this study, rooftop facet orientation distributions are presented and analyzed for all single-family buildings in the Swedish city of Uppsala, based on LiDAR-based data that consist of every roof facet from the around 13,500 single-family buildings in the city. From these distributions, novel methods to proportionally include less suitable roofs for every penetration level are proposed using a simple method based on normal and uniform probability density functions, and are tested for both time-series and stochastic hosting capacity analysis. The results show that under the assumption that the best roof facets are utilized first, a uniform distribution for rooftop facet azimuth and a normal distribution for rooftop facet tilt with parameters that depend linearly on the penetration level were shown to be accurate. The hosting capacity simulations demonstrate how the proposed methods perform significantly better in estimating the photovoltaic hosting capacity than the more common simplified methods for both time-series and stochastic hosting capacity analysis. The proposed model could help distribution system operators as well as researchers in this area to model the rooftop facet orientation uncertainty better and improve the quality of aggregated photovoltaic generation models and hosting capacity analyses.

The currently increasing penetration of photovoltaic (PV) generation and electric vehicle (EV) charging in electricity distribution grids leads to higher system uncertainties. This makes it vital for load flow analyses to use probabilistic methods that take into account the uncertainty in both load and generation. Such probabilistic load flow (PLF) approaches typically involve three main components: (1) probability distribution models, (2) correlation models, and (3) PLF computations. In this review, state-of-the-art approaches to each of these components are discussed comprehensively, including suggestions of preferred modelling methods specifically for distribution systems with PV generation and EV charging. Research gaps that need to be explored are also identified. For further development of PLF analysis, improving input distribution modelling to be more physically realistic for load, PV generation, and EV charging is vital. Further correlation modelling efforts should focus on developing an effective spatio-temporal correlation model that is able to cope with high-dimensional inputs. The computational speed of PLF analysis needs to be improved to accommodate more complex distribution system models, and time-series approaches should be developed to meet operational needs. Furthermore, collection of higher-quality data is crucial for PLF studies, especially for improving the accuracy in the input variables.

The number of photovoltaic (PV) installations in the low voltage (LV) grid has increased globally in the last decade. Simultaneously, the sales of electric vehicles (EVs) have rapidly increased. In this paper, an investigation of the impacts of single phase charging (slow charging) of EVs along with single phase PV power generation on a residential electricity grid is provided. This paper also considers unbalanced loads in the electricity grid. Several scenarios were modeled, and each scenario represented a degree of severity of the unbalance in the grid. The results show that the tested grid could maintain the voltages within 0.905–1.103 per-unit (pu) when unbalanced and with PV generation and EV charging loads. The active power losses, however, increased by 42% as compared with the case without EVs. The unbalance of the customer loads results in a 0.03 pu decrease in the minimum voltage in the grid. In addition, the active power losses were higher by 12% compared with the balanced customer load case. In summary, future papers are encouraged to simulate the loads in their unbalanced form, and to try to balance the loads among the phases of the grid.