Proposal Microgrid Control

Should microgrid planning and design tools be repurposed?

While microgrid planning and design tools achieve their project goals and requirements, repurposing them to meet new or evolving requirements is often a time consuming and difficult proposition.

What is a microgrid planning capability?

Planning capability that supports the ability to model and design new microgrid protection schemes that are more robust to changing conditions such as load types, inverter-based resources, and networked microgrids.

Do microgrids need protection modeling?

Protection modeling. As designs for microgrids consider higher penetration of renewable and inverter-based energy sources, the need to consider the design of protection systems within MDPT becomes pronounced.

What is a microgrid control system?

This control system should provide several functions to be able to reliably and optimally manage the microgrid. A general architecture is proposed comprising of the local and supervisory controllers, communication system, enhanced Human Machine Interface (HMI) and forecasting server. The role of each element of control system is described.

Why do microgrids need different control arrangements?

This suggests a need for capabilities that model different control arrangements, such as through ADMS, Aggregators or DERMS, and the visibility of control so that stakeholders may assess the degree to which the capabilities of the microgrid can be used to meet stated performance objectives as dictated by the controller arrangement.

How can a microgrid controller be integrated with a distribution management system?

First, the microgrid controller can be integrated with the utility’s distribution management system (DMS) directly in the form of centralized management. Second, the microgrid controller can be integrated indirectly using decentralized management via a Distributed Energy Resources Management System (DERMS).