An increase in the number of Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicles (PHEVs) might negatively affect the performance of Microgrid (MG) such as, reducing power quality and efficiency, increasing power losses and voltage variations, and increasing customers' energy prices. An effective selection of the capacity and location of charging stations helps in reducing such negative impact. This paper proposes a method for finding the optimal location and capacity of PHEVs charging stations along with the optimal location of renewable energy sources (RESs). A multi-objective function including charging/discharging costs, losses, and voltage profile is adopted to formulate the paper problem. Differential Evolution algorithm is used to solve the proposed objective function. By applying the proposed method into a 69-bus network its performance is assessed. The simulation results support the effectiveness of the proposed method. (c) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.