Autonomous Power Control and Management between Standalone DC Microgrids

Abstract

Renewable integrated dc Microgrids (DCMGs) are gaining popularity by feeding remote locations in qualitative and quantitative manner. Reliability of autonomous dc microgrids depend on battery capacity and size due to stochastic behavior of renewables. Over charging and discharging scenarios compel the microgrid into insecure zone. Increasing the storage capacity is not an economical solution because of additional maintenance and capital cost. Thus, interconnecting neighbor microgrids increases virtual storing and discharging capacity when excess power and deficit scenario arises respectively in any of the DCMG. Control strategy plays vital role in regulating the power within and between microgrids. Power control and management technique is developed based on bus signaling method to govern sources, storages, and loads to achieve effective coordination and energy management between microgrids. Proposed scheme is simple and reliable since bus voltages are utilized in shifting the modes without having dedicated communication lines. Proposed scheme is validated through real time simulation of two autonomous dc grids in real time digital simulator (RTDS) and its results are verified by hardware experimentation. © 2005-2012 IEEE.