Grid-connected Microgrids to Support Renewable Energy Sources Penetration

Distributed generation systems and microgrids are instrumental for a greater penetration of renewables to achieve a substantial reduction on carbon emissions. However, microgrids performances and reliability strongly depend on the continuous interaction between power generation, storage and load requirements, highlighting the importance in developing a proper energy management strategy and the relative control system. In this work a Model predictive Control (MPC) strategy, based on a Mixed Linear Integer Programming framework, has been applied to a residential microgrid case. Theoretical results obtained confirm that grid connected microgrids have potential capabilities in grid balancing allowing for a larger penetration of fluctuating renewable energy sources and thus producing economic benefits for both end-user and grid operators. A microgrid test bench to reproduce previous microgrid model is also presented in the paper. The experimental setup has been used to validate results obtained from simulation. Results obtained confirm the potential of this solution and its real applicability. (C) 2016 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd