A Real-Life Application of a Smart User Network

Giuseppe Barone,Giovanni Brusco,Pasquale Vizza,Nicola Sorrentino,Daniele Menniti,Michele Motta,Alessandro Burgio,Anna Pinnarelli

doi:10.3390/en11123504

Abstract

Smart Community microgrids could help to improve overall energy efficiency reducing transmission and distribution losses and allowing the implementation of optimal load control and resource dispatching. In this context, the authors have proposed the realization of DC smart microgrids. They are considered as a future prospective according to the increase of DC loads and DC output type distribution energy sources such as Photovoltaic and energy storage systems. In this paper, a DC smart microgrid, called Smart User Network, realized in a real-life application as a part of pilot site under the national research project PON04_00146 Smart cities and Communities and Social innovation named “Reti, Edifici, Strade Nuovi Obiettivi Virtuosi per l’Ambiente e l’Energia” (RES NOVAE), is illustrated. The Smart User Network, is managed by a distributed and decentralized control logic, the DC Bus Signaling, which allows the converters to operate independently of each other according to a decentralized logic. It guarantees the reliability, the continuity and the quality of supply, optimizing the use of energy produced by renewable energy sources, also in stand-alone configuration. The most significant experimental results obtained both in grid-connected and stand-alone configuration are presented and discussed.

Highlights

It is about fifty years that the attention to environmental issues significantly affects the planning and development policies of many countries all around the world
The aim of this paper is to demonstrate the applicability of a decentralized and distributed control logic, as the DC Bus Signaling (DBS) implemented by the authors in References [4,7], to a Smart User Network (SUN) in a real-life application
The Power Electronic Interface (PEI) operates as master converter and the energy storage system (EESS)

Summary

Introduction

It is about fifty years that the attention to environmental issues significantly affects the planning and development policies of many countries all around the world. The welfare of a nation is still too often linked exclusively to industrial development, the objectives of which are often in the opposite direction to the environment care. To reconcile these goals, the concept of sustainable development must be seriously realized. The concept of sustainable development considers the ability of a nation to produce wealth while respecting the environment It has a much wider significance: It is the result of the growing awareness of the connection between environmental problems, socio-economic issues to do with poverty and inequality and concerns about a future healthy for humanity

Objectives

Results

Conclusion