Enhancing Energy Extraction for a Multi-Resource Standalone Microgrid

Abstract

In a microgrid configuration integrated with different types of distributed energy resources (DERs), dedicated DC-DC converter stage ensures matching of source characteristics, to avoid power losses occurred due to the mismatching phenomena. However, in absence of proper coordinated control between DC bus and the inverter control, this additional energy extracted at dc bus may not be fully utilized. In this paper, an energy extraction maximization (EEM) control concept is proposed to increase the extraction and transfer of energy from DC bus to the load side through inverter control mechanism. Microgrid with multiple PV sources, fuel cell, battery and supercapacitor as DERs is considered for demonstration and EEM control is implemented on centralized inverter keeping configuration of other distributed energy sources intact. To illustrate the performance of proposed control, MATLAB/Simulink simulation has been carried out. Results obtained shows that proposed EEM control ensures the increased extraction of energy from dc bus and further a hardware implementation of the proposed concept is required to reach on some concrete results.