Research proposal on Microgrid management with multiple DER units

Assignment Ph.D Program (2013)

Submitted by: Snehamoy Dhar, Research fellow, Dept. of Electrical Engineering, ITER, SOA University

I. Introduction

Present energy scenario is exhibits two main prospect to taken care of. Firstly the fossil fuel based power generations facilities are becoming environmental threat for the future of this planet by unwanted CO2 emission. India is playing a vital role in CO2 emission (4% of Global emission per year). Secondly above 1.3 billion people worldwide lack access to electricity services among them 404 million people are from rural part of India. Especially in India, daily average per capita electricity use is about 2 kWh for connected population where the distribution of the consumption is highly unequal (World Energy Outlook 2013 report by International Energy Agency). Increasing energy efficiency is also a major challenge for countrys power sector which reports nearly 36 % losses in transmission and distribution. As a developing nation, its crucial to increase the per capita electricity consumption with defined power quality parameters. The prescribed solution for this dogmatic scenario is by expanding access to electricity for parts of the populations not reached by the main distribution/ utility grid supply, in the way of installing new micro grid facilities with multiple distributed energy resources (DER). To meet the environmental issues these DER units are precisely renewable energy sources like wind turbines, photovoltaic (PV), fossil fuels etc. Beside its environmental and economical benefits, the degrees of acceptability and proliferation of mirogrid in the utility grid system are primarily determined by the envisioned controller capabilities and the operational features. Some of the reasons for giving much emphasize on Microgrid management are as follows: Steady-state and dynamic characteristics of Distributed Energy Resources (DER) units, particularly electronically coupled units, are different than those of the conventional large turbine-generator units. A microgrid is having the inherent nature to manifest a significant degree of imbalance due to the presence of single-phase loads and/or DER units. A noticeable portion of supply within a microgrid can be from uncontrollable, inconsistent sources; for example: solar radiation on photovoltaic (PV), wind-based units. Short- and long-term energy storage units can play a major role in control and operation of a microgrid. Economics often dictate that a microgrid must readily accommodate connection and disconnection of DER units and loads while maintaining its operation. A microgrid may be required to provide specific power quality levels or preferential services to some loads (critical loads). In addition to electrical energy, a microgrid is often responsible for generating and supplying heat to all or parts of its loads. To control the heat flow in the system strategic approaches are in importance.

Therefore the key direction of my research proposal will be to review various existing control strategies for microgrid power/ energy management with various DER units like wind turbines, PV based systems and to elaborate some gap of present utility practices.

Gap of Research 1.1 Background of study: An overview of the existing microgrid controls, highlights the importance of power and energy management strategies, and describes potential approaches for market participation is described in this part. 1.1.1 Microgrid Structure and Characteristic:

Figure 1. A typical microgrid system schematic with DER units and loads connected with utility grid

From the schematic of microgrid structure shown in figure 1, it is clearly visible that microgrid is a part of an electrical power distribution system, located in the secondary side of the distribution substation transformer, which is called as point of common coupling (PCC); and it includes various DER units and different types of end users of electricity and/or heat. DER units include both distributed generation (DG) and distributed storage (DS) units with different capacities and characteristics. The microgrid serves a variety of customers, e.g., residential buildings, commercial entities, and industrial parks. The microgrid of Figure 1 normally operates