Conservation Voltage Reduction for Islanded DC Microgrids Based on Distributed Cooperative Control Scheme

Abstract

This paper presents a cooperative control strategy to reduce the power consumption based on the concept of conservation voltage reduction (CVR) in an islanded DC microgrid. It is expected that each islanded DC microgrid supplies its loads autonomously; however, owing to the unexpected power demand, it is possible that the microgrid experiences power deficiency. In conventional power systems, the CVR is one of the cheapest technologies for demand-side management that the utilities lower the voltage of end-use loads within the permissible range in hope that the power demand is reduced. However, in the islanded DC microgrids, the employment of CVR for demand-side management has not received sufficient attention so far. Therefore, this paper presents a CVR based distributed cooperative control scheme which, carries out demand-side management by voltage regulation. The efficiency of the proposed control scheme in comparison to the well-known hierarchical distributed cooperative control is illustrated. A complete set of simulation studies is carried out in PLECS to verify the effectiveness of the proposed control scheme.