Power Sharing in Island Microgrids

Abstract

The growth of local renewable energy sources and heavy loads in power distribution networks, such as the increasing electric vehicles charging stations, causes several issues with a direct impact on the stability of the electrical grid. An attempt to overcome such issues is the microgrid concept, which has the grid structured into local sub-grids that manage their power and energy balancing. A microgrid may operate connected or disconnected from the main grid, being dynamically necessary to guarantee a power balancing between local loads and sources. Furthermore, as several power units are connected to the same microgrid, equity is also required in terms of power sharing. Current work explores a scenario of an island operation of a microgrid with multiple sources, including battery storage systems and sharing power with multiple loads, including electric vehicle chargers, a scenario appropriated to a city grid. A local control solution for a stable operation of the microgrid in terms of both power balancing and power sharing is presented and validated through numerical and experimental results.