Abstract
Owing to the intermittent nature of renewable energy, microgrids in islanding operation mode require backup power sources. The diesel generator is the most popular backup source, but does not offer an instantaneous start-up and cannot immediately provide the necessary power. Therefore, supercapacitors are used to assist the power balance during diesel generator start-up thanks to their responsiveness and high-power density. This paper proposed a power management strategy for an autonomous DC microgrid based on a photovoltaic source, electrochemical storage, a supercapacitor, and a diesel generator. The proposed control system aimed at power balance while accounting for the slow start-up characteristic of the diesel generator, the self-discharge of the supercapacitor, the dynamic load management, and the economic operating mode of the diesel generator. The main contribution of this paper centered on a power management strategy solving the above issues integrally, and economic analysis for the diesel generator and microgrid. Experimental studies were carried out for different scenarios and the results obtained confirmed the effectiveness of the proposed strategy. Furthermore, the study provided a comparison between the economic operating and load-following modes of the diesel generator and demonstrated that the economic operating mode of the diesel generator can reduce the total energy cost of the DC microgrid.
Highlights
The smart grid is a generation power system [1,2], in which the microgrid gathers the loads, storage, and distributed energy resources (DERs) operating as a single controllable electrical power system [3]
Considering that this paper focuses on a real-time power control and power management strategy, both the AC load and DC load are regarded as the DC power demanded on the DC bus
For both operating modes of the diesel generator (DG), the parallel supplying mode of the PV and DG power sources is considered in case of insufficient PV power
Summary
The smart grid is a generation power system [1,2], in which the microgrid gathers the loads, storage, and distributed energy resources (DERs) operating as a single controllable electrical power system [3]. Fuel efficiency related to output power is an inevitable constraint, since most DGs use fixed speed synchronous generators [11] In this context, several power management strategies and control methods for PV-DG-storagebased DC microgrids have been proposed. In Reference [18], optimal power management aiming to minimize both fuel costs and electrochemical storage wear costs is presented In this strategy, the DG runs in load-following mode without demand response considerations. The main contribution of this paper centers on a power management strategy for an autonomous DC microgrid, and economic analysis for the DG and microgrid This control aims to achieve power balance while accounting for the slow start-up characteristic of a DG, the self-discharge of a SC, dynamic load management, and the economic operating mode of the DG.
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