Energy and power management system for microgrids of large-scale building prosumers

Abstract

A method for optimal energy and power management of microgrids consisting of mega buildings, plug-in electric vehicles (PEVs) and renewable energy sources (RES) with low computation requirements is proposed by the authors. Thermal and electrical loads are considered for the operation scheduling of the microgrid. In case of non-interconnected operation of the microgrid with the main power grid, the proposed method allows the microgrid to meet the power demand by the buildings and distribution loads exploiting only the hosted PEVs, the integrated RES and, if it is necessary or financially optimal, building auxiliary diesel generators. The primary goal of the suggested algorithm is to significantly reduce the overall daily cost of the microgrid's operation while simultaneously meeting a wide range of constraints. The implementation of the method is based on the exploitation of a two-level hierarchical multi-agent system (MAS) at the level of the microgrid. Suitably defined flexibilities of the microgrid's components to change their power are used to implement optimal power dispatch to them. Detailed simulation results indicated that a remarkable cost reduction of 27% can be achieved.