Modeling, Analyses and Assessment of Microgrids Considering High Renewable Energy Penetration

Abstract

Microgrids are receiving attention due to the increasing need to integrate distributed generations and to ensure power quality and provide energy surety to the customers. Since renewables need to be in the mix for energy surety, a high renewable-energy penetrated microgrid is analyzed in this paper. The standard IEEE 34 bus distribution feeder is adapted and managed as a microgrid by adding distributed generation and load profiles. The 25kV system parameters are scaled down to 12kV and renewable sources including solar PV and wind turbines, an energy storage system, and a natural gas generator have been added to the 34-bus system. The distribution generations (DG) and renewables are modeled in detail using PSCAD software and practical constraints of the components are considered. The droop control and autonomous control for microgrid normal operation in islanded mode and grid-tied mode have been proposed and studied. A novel comprehensive supervisory control scheme has been defined to manage the microgrid transition from or to the bulk grid, and to minimize the transients on voltage and frequency. Detailed analyses for islanding, reconnection, and black start are presented for various conditions. The proposed control techniques accept inputs from local measurements and supervisory controls in order to manage the system voltage and frequency. The monitoring of the microgrid for measuring power quality and control requirements for DGs and storage are modeled. The power quality issues are discussed and indexes are calculated. A novel probabilistic assessment of microgrid reliability has been proposed. At last, several extended researches are presented. An experimental system has been built which includes three 250kW inverters emulating natural gas generator, energy storage, and renewable source. The simulation and experimental results are provided which verifies the analytical presentation of the hardware and control algorithms.