Effective approach to distributed optimal operation control in rural low voltage microgrids

The paper raises the issue of optimizing the control of the rural low voltage microgrids. Microgrids can operate in a synchronous mode with grids of distribution system operators and in an island mode. We can distinguish two control strategies in microgrids: one approach based on centralized control logic, which is usually used, and another on decentralized control logic. In this paper we decided to present the approach based on the distributed control, combining the efforts of the distributed cooperative control and modified Monte Carlo optimization method. Special attention has been paid to the impact of the order of processing particular devices’ groups on results of optimization calculations. Moreover, different scenarios of behavior of the microgrid control system with respect to the communication loss have been also presented. The influence of the issue of continuity of communication between particular devices’ groups on the possibility of carrying out the optimization process has been investigated. Additionally, characteristics of power loads and generation of electricity from small renewable energy sources appearing in rural areas have been described and the sensitivity of the optimization algorithm to the changes of demanded power values and changes of values of power generated by renewable energy sources has been studied. We analyzed different objective functions which can be used as an optimization goal both in synchronous and island operation modes of microgrid. We decided to intensively test our approach on a sample rural LV microgrid, which is typical in the countryside. The observed results of the tests have been presented and analyzed in detail. Generally, results achieved with the use of proposed distributed control are the same as with the use of centralized control. We think that the approach based on distributed control is promising for practical applications, because of its advantages.