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Because of their stochastic nature, the high penetration of electric vehicles (EVs) places demands on the power system that may strain network reliability. Along with increasing network voltage deviations, this can also lower the quality of the power provided. By placing EV fast charging stations (FCSs) in strategic grid locations, this issue can be resolved. Thus, this work suggests a new methodology incorporating an effective and straightforward Red-Tailed Hawk Algorithm (RTH) to identify the optimal locations and capacities for FCSs in a real Aljouf Transmission Network located in northern Saudi Arabia. Using a fitness function, this work's objective is to minimize voltage violations over a 24 h period. The merits of the suggested RTH are its high convergence rate and ability to eschew local solutions. The results obtained via the suggested RTH are contrasted with those of other approaches such as the use of a Kepler optimization algorithm (KOA), gold rush optimizer (GRO), grey wolf optimizer (GWO), and spider wasp optimizer (SWO). Annual substation demand, solar irradiance, and photovoltaic (PV) temperature datasets are utilized in this study to describe the demand as well as the generation profiles in the proposed real network. A principal component analysis (PCA) is employed to reduce the complexity of each dataset and to prepare them for the k-means algorithm. Then, k-means clustering is used to partition each dataset into k distinct clusters evaluated using internal and external validity indices. The values of these indices are weighted to select the best number of clusters. Moreover, a Monte Carlo simulation (MCS) is applied to probabilistically determine the daily profile of each data set. According to the obtained results, the proposed RTH outperformed the others, achieving the lowest fitness value of 0.134346 pu, while the GRO came in second place with a voltage deviation of 0.135646 pu. Conversely, the KOA was the worst method, achieving a fitness value of 0.148358 pu. The outcomes attained validate the suggested approach's competency in integrating FCSs into a real transmission grid by selecting their best locations and sizes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]