Robust microgrid energy trading and scheduling under budgeted uncertainty

Abstract

The advent of smart grids came with several technological developments including new electricity market rules and regulation mechanisms. Microgrids can trade energy with the main grid to either sell its production surplus (from renewable energy sources) or buy an additional amount to support local consumers’ demand, which includes flexible loads, such as smart appliances and electric vehicles. In this scenario, smart control devices are important elements, executing real-time energy scheduling according to fluctuations in production and consumption. As we might expect, the main grid’s power generation and supply becomes more unscheduled and risky as energy trading quantities oscillate over time. This work studies a flexible energy contract subscription framework, coupled with a real-time command strategy, suited for energy scheduling of microgrids with uncertainty in both production and consumption. Our main contributions are a Robust Optimization model under budgeted uncertainty for contract subscription and a set of heuristic control strategies for the real-time energy scheduling. The robust model is capable of providing solutions for multi-period-ahead trading of energy, while minimizing the worst-case cost. We run an extensive computational case study on a real microgrid instance to confirm the efficacy of our solution approach.