Integration of renewable generation and energy storage technologies with conventional generation supports increased resilience, lower-costs, and clean energy goals. Traditionally, energy supply needs of rural off-grid communities have been addressed with diesel-generation. But with rapidly falling renewable generation costs, mini-grids are transforming into hybrid systems with a mix of renewables, energy storage, and diesel-generation. Optimal design of hybrid mini-grid requires an understanding of both the economic and power quality impacts of different designs. Existing approaches to modeling distributed energy resources address the economic viability and power quality impacts via separate/loosely coupled models. Here, we extend REopt - a techno-economic optimization model developed at National Renewable Energy Laboratory - to consider both within a single model. REopt formulates the design problem as a mixed-integer linear program that solves a deterministic optimization problem for a site's optimal technology mix, sizing, and operation to minimize life cycle cost. REopt has traditionally not constrained the power injection based on power quality. In the work presented here, we expand the REopt platform to consider multiple connected nodes. In order to do this, we model power flow using a fixed-point linear approximation method. Resulting system sizes and voltage magnitudes are validated against the base REopt model, and solutions of established power flow models respectively. We then use the model to explore design considerations of mini-grids in Sub-Saharan Africa. Specifically, we evaluate under what combinations of line length and line capacity it is economically beneficial (or technically required based on voltage limits) to build isolated mini-grids versus an interconnected system that benefits from the economies of scale associated with a single, centralized generation system.
A non-centralized model predictive control (MPC) scheme for solving an economic dispatch problem of electrical networks is proposed in this paper. The scheme consists of two parts. The first part is an event-triggered repartitioning method that splits the network into a fixed number of non-overlapping sub-systems {(microgrids)}. The objective of the repartitioning procedure is to obtain self-sufficient microgrids, i.e., those that can meet their local loads using their own generation units. However, since the algorithm does not guarantee that all the resulting microgrids are self-sufficient, t…
Building sector is the largest energy user in the United States. Conventional building energy studies mostly involve Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning (HVAC), and lighting energy consumptions. Recent additions of solar Photovoltaics (PV) along with other Distributed Energy Resources (DER), particularly Plug-in Electric Vehicles (PEV) have added a new dimension to this problem and made it more complex. This paper presents an avant-garde framework for selecting the best charging/discharging level of PEV for a commercial building-integrated microgrid. A typical commercial building is use…
This paper presents an Energy Management System (EMS) that considers power exchanges between a set of interconnected microgrids (MGs) and the main grid, in the context of Multi-MG (MMG) systems. The model is first formulated as a centralized optimization problem, which is then decomposed into subproblems corresponding to each MG, using Lagrangian relaxation, and solved through a distributed approach using a subgradient method. The proposed model determines the power exchanges minimizing the operation cost of each MG, considering grid constraints and preserving the privacy of each MG by not rev…
In this work, we present new secondary regulators for current sharing and voltage balancing in DC microgrids, composed of distributed generation units, dynamic RLC lines, and nonlinear ZIP (constant impedance, constant current, and constant power) loads. The proposed controllers sit atop a primary voltage control layer, and exchange information over a communication network to perform secondary control actions. We deduce sufficient conditions for the existence and uniqueness of an equilibrium point, and show that the desired objectives are attained in steady state. Our control design requires o…
Micro- and smart grids (MSG) play an important role both for integrating renewable energy sources in conventional electricity grids and for providing power supply in remote areas. Modern MSGs are largely driven by power electronic converters due to their high efficiency and flexibility. Nevertheless, controlling MSGs is a challenging task due to highest requirements on energy availability, safety and voltage quality within a wide range of different MSG topologies. This results in a high demand for comprehensive testing of new control concepts during their development phase and comparisons with…
Whenever stability of a system is concerned, transient stability is given the highest priority. For analysis purpose transient stability is checked with the help of Critical Clearing Time (CCT). With the continuous growth of Distributed Generation (DG) concept, the need of a stable industrial microgrid is a necessity. This paper studies the effect of Solar PV as DG unit on CCT during islanded operation of an industrial microgrid system. In primary analysis a single centralized Solar PV unit along with the Synchronous Generator (SG) is used. Then multiple PV units distributed at random location…
The capability to switch between grid-connected and islanded modes has promoted adoption of microgrid technology for powering remote locations. Stabilizing frequency during the islanding event, however, is a challenging control task, particularly under high penetration of converter-interfaced sources. In this paper, a numerical optimal control (NOC)-based control synthesis methodology is proposed for preparedness of microgrid islanding that ensure guaranteed performance. The key feature of the proposed paradigm is near real-time centralized scheduling for real-time decentralized executing. For…
In this work, we present a novel consensus-based secondary control scheme for current sharing and voltage balancing in DC microgrids, composed of distributed generation units, dynamic RLC lines, and nonlinear ZIE (constant impedance, constant current, and exponential) loads. Situated atop a primary voltage control layer, our secondary controllers have a distributed structure, and utilize information exchanged over a communication network to compute necessary control actions. Besides showing that the desired objectives are always attained in steady state, we deduce sufficient conditions for the…
Efforts to utilize 100% renewable energy in community microgrids require new approaches to energy markets and transactions to efficiently address periods of scarce energy supply. In this paper we contribute to the promising approach of peer-to-peer (P2P) energy trading in two main ways: analysis of a centralized, welfare-maximizing economic dispatch that characterizes optimal price and allocations, and a novel P2P system for negotiating energy trades that yields physically feasible and at least weakly Pareto-optimal outcomes. Our main results are 1) that optimal pricing is insufficient to indu…
A neural network-based energy management system (NN-EMS) has been proposed in this paper for islanded ac microgrids fed by multiple PV-battery based distributed generators (DG). The stochastic and unequal irradiation results in unequal PV output, which causes an unequal state-of-charge (SoC) among the batteries of the DGs. This effect may cause the difference in the SoCs to increase considerably over time, leading to some batteries reaching their SoC limits. These batteries would no longer be able to control the dc-link of the hybrid grid forming DG. The proposed NN-EMS ensures SoC balancing b…
To accommodate the advent of microgrids (MG) managing distributed energy resources (DER) in distribution systems, an interactive two-stage joint retail electricity market mechanism is proposed to provide an effective platform for these prosumers to proactively join in retail transactions. Day-ahead stochastic energy trading between the distribution system operator (DSO) and MGs is conducted in the first stage of a centralized retail market, where a chance-constrained uncertainty distribution locational marginal price (CC-UDLMP) containing the cost of uncertainty precautions is used to settle t…
Fully Distributed Secondary Voltage Control in Inverter-Based Microgrids
Lane Department of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering, West Virginia University（西弗吉尼亚大学计算机科学与电气工程学院）；Advanced Power & Electricity Research Group (APERC)（先进电力与能源研究小组 (APERC)）；Wireless Sensor Actuator Networks (WSAN) Research Group（无线传感器执行器网络研究小组）
Hierarchical architectures stacking primary, secondary, and tertiary layers are widely employed for the operation and control of islanded DC microgrids (DCmGs), composed of Distribution Generation Units (DGUs), loads, and power lines. However, a comprehensive analysis of all the layers put together is often missing. In this work, we remedy this limitation by setting out a top-to-bottom hierarchical control architecture. Decentralized voltage controllers attached to DGUs form our primary layer. Governed by an MPC--based Energy Management System (EMS), our tertiary layer generates optimal power …
Plug-and-play and coordinated control for bus-connected AC islanded microgrids
United Technologies Research Center Ireland（联合技术研究院爱尔兰）；Dipartimento di Ingegneria Industriale e dell’Informazione, Università degli Studi di Pavia（帕维亚大学工业与信息技术系）；Institute of Energy Technology, Aalborg University（奥尔堡大学能源技术研究所）；Automatic Control Laboratory, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL)（洛桑联邦理工学院自动控制实验室）
The complexity arising in AC microgrids from multiple interacting distributed generation units (DGUs) with intermittent supply behavior requires local voltage-source inverters (VSIs) to be controlled in a distributed or decentralized manner at primary level. In (Strehle et al., 2019), we use passivity theory to design decentralized, plug-and-play voltage and frequency controllers for such VSIs. However, the stability analysis of the closed-loop system requires a load-connected topology, in contrast to real grids where loads are arbitrarily located. In this paper, we expand our former approach …
Changchun Institute of Technology（长春工程学院）；National and Local Joint Engineering Research Center for Smart Distribution Network Measurement, Control and Safe Operation Technology（智能配电网测控与安全运行技术国家地方联合工程研究中心）；Qilu University of Technology (Shandong Academy of Sciences)（齐鲁工业大学（山东省科学院））；Institute of Oceanographic Instrumentation（海洋仪器研究所）
As an efficient way to integrate multiple distributed energy resources and the user side, a microgrid is mainly faced with the problems of small-scale volatility, uncertainty, intermittency and demand-side uncertainty of DERs. The traditional microgrid has a single form and cannot meet the flexible energy dispatch between the complex demand side and the microgrid. In response to this problem, the overall environment of wind power, thermostatically controlled loads, energy storage systems, price-responsive loads and the main grid is proposed. Secondly, the centralized control of the microgrid o…
This thesis explores a particular class of distributed optimization methods for various separable resource allocation problems, which are of high interest in a wide array of multi-agent settings. A distinctly motivating application for this thesis is real-time power dispatch of distributed energy resources for providing frequency control in a distribution grid or microgrid with high renewable energy penetration. In this application, it is paramount that agent data be shared as sparsely as possible in the interest of conserving user privacy, and it is required that algorithms scale gracefully a…
This paper proposes a peer to peer (P2P), blockchain based energy trading market platform for residential communities with the objective of reducing overall community peak demand and household electricity bills. Smart homes within the community place energy bids for its available distributed energy resources (DERs) for each discrete trading period during a day, and a double auction mechanism is used to clear the market and compute the market clearing price (MCP). The marketplace is implemented on a permissioned blockchain infrastructure, where bids are stored to the immutable ledger and smart …
