Simultaneous AC/DC distribution for the sustainable operation of smart building clusters in hybrid urban microgrids

Abstract

Hybrid AC/DC urban microgrids (HUMG) have emerged as a candidate solution to reliably, efficiently, and economically meet the increasing consumer electric demand and to ensure the quality of delivered power. Smart buildings (SB) are prevalent prosumers in HUMGs. To effectively utilise renewable resources in SBs, it is imperative to have assistance from battery energy storage systems (BESSs). Also, uncertainty in generation and demand necessitates real-time ancillary power support for SBs. Smart building interconnection forming SB clusters is an emerging solution for providing ancillary power support. Existing SB interconnection topologies require multiple power conversion stages, additional infrastructure, and underutilise the existing AC grid infrastructure. Most of these SB interconnections are not sustainable due to higher losses from more power conversion stages, increased cost, and excessive dependence on BESSs. A composite transmission system-based ancillary power dispatching architecture (CTS-APDA) for the sustainable operation of SB clusters is proposed in this paper. A multi-agent system based hierarchical control and decision logic in the CTS-APDA ensures the optimal ustilisation of battery resources. The operation of the proposed CTS-APDA and its efficacy as a fast-acting ancillary support is validated through extensive case studies. The proposed CTS-APDA will foster participation of electric vehicles in the transactive energy market of emerging SBs.