Development of a Smart Energy Community by Coupling Neighbouring Community Microgrids for Enhanced Power Sharing Using Customised Droop Control

Sandipan Patra,Malabika Basu,Sreedhar Madichetty

doi:10.3390/en14175383

Sandipan Patra, Malabika Basu + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/en14175383

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Journal: Energies	Publication Date: Aug 30, 2021
Citations: 3	License type: CC BY 4.0

Affiliation: Technological University Dublin, Mahindra University

Abstract

This article aims to develop a smart isolated energy community (EC) by coupling the neighbouring rural community microgrids (CMGs) with enhanced droop control for efficient power sharing. This recommended solution employs a power management (PM) based droop-control to enable independent neighbouring CMGs to share power on an available basis by not constraining CMG inverters to equal power sharing. During the grid-connected mode, the droop control may have different power setpoints of each CMG. However, during the standalone mode of operation, the power setpoint should be defined according to their power rating and availability to maintain the system stability. In this article, a PM strategy is developed to maintain the power setpoints of the autonomous CMGs. An improper selection of power setpoints in autonomous CMG can raise the DC link voltage to an unmanageable value and can cause an inadvertent shutdown of CMG. The suggested PM-based droop control enables the CMG inverter not to restrict the inverter to equal power share but to distribute its active power as available in an asymmetric way, if required. The dynamic performance of the proposed coupled system incorporated with two remote isolated CMGs is investigated in a MATLAB environment. Further, a laboratory prototype of the proposed system has been developed using a LabVIEW-based sbRIO controller to verify the efficacy of the proposed approach.

Highlights

The high penetration of renewable energy sources (RES) in rural energy community (EC) are the backbone of the European Strategy (2018/2001/EU, RED II) [1] towards a clean and low carbon society
EC is the modern recognition of smart communities, where everyone from energy policymakers to customers plays a vital role in achieving sustainable living for society [2,3]
Sharing available energy resources among neighbouring community microgrids (CMGs) creates a sense of Sharing available energywhich resources among neighbouring

Summary

Introduction

The high penetration of renewable energy sources (RES) in rural ECs are the backbone of the European Strategy (2018/2001/EU, RED II) [1] towards a clean and low carbon society. EC is the modern recognition of smart communities, where everyone from energy policymakers to customers plays a vital role in achieving sustainable living for society [2,3] Any legal body, such as an association/community, a cooperative, a partnership, a nonprofit organization, or a small/medium-sized business, can form an energy community. Maintaining generation demand balance in an EC is a critical task for a system/community operator This requires maintaining a certain level of flexibility in the system, which forms an inevitable system service requirement. In these isolated CMGs, the intermittent nature of dispersed energy sources, along with load uncertainties, might induce a power mismatch, resulting in unwanted frequency and voltage variation. The coupling of neighboring isolated CMGs is economical and technically more feasible for any power exchange during any contingency

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