Interdependency of Transmission and Distribution Pricing

Distribution markets are among the prospect being considered for the future of power systems. They would facilitate integration of distributed energy resources (DERs) and microgrids via a market mechanism and enable them to monetize services they can provide. This paper follows the ongoing work in implementing the distribution market operator (DMO) concept, and its clearing and settlement procedures, and focuses on investigating the pricing conducted by the DMO. The distribution locational marginal prices (D-LMPs) and their relationship with the transmission system locational marginal prices (T-LMPs) are subject of this paper. Numerical simulations on a test distribution system exhibit the benefits and drawbacks of the proposed DMO pricing processes.Comment: Accepted to 2016 IEEE PES Innovative Smart Grid Technologies (ISGT

Hybrid AC/DC Provisional Microgrid Planning Model Considering Converter Aging

Building integrated photovoltaics is one of the key technologies when it comes to electricity generation in buildings, districts or urban areas. However, the potential of building façades for the BIPV system, especially in urban areas, is often neglected. Façade-mounted building integrated photovoltaics could contribute to supply the energy demand of buildings in dense urban areas with economic feasibility where the availability of suitable rooftop areas is low. This paper deals with the levelised cost of electricity (LCOE) of building integrated photovoltaic systems (BIPV) in the capitals of all the European member state countries plus Norway and Switzerland and presents a metric to investigate a proper subsidy or incentive for BIPV systems. The results showed that the average LCOE of the BIPV system as a building envelope material for the entire outer skin of buildings in Europe is equal to 0.09 Euro per kWh if its role as the power generator is considered in the economic calculations. This value will be 0.15 Euro per kWh if the cost corresponding to its double function in the building is taken into the economic analysis (while the average electricity price is 0.18 Euro per kWh). The results indicate that the BIPV generation cost in most case studies has already reached grid parity. Furthermore, the analysis reveals that on average in Europe, the BIPV system does not need a feed-in tariff if the selling price to the grid is equal to the purchasing price from the grid. Various incentive plans based on the buying/selling price of electricity from/to the main grid together with LCOE of the BIPV systems is also investigated. View Full-TextpublishedVersio

Demand and Storage Management in a Prosumer Nanogrid Based on Energy Forecasting

Energy efficiency and consumers' role in the energy system are among the strategic research topics in power systems these days. Smart grids (SG) and, specifically, microgrids, are key tools for these purposes. This paper presents a three-stage strategy for energy management in a prosumer nanogrid. Firstly, energy monitoring is performed and time-space compression is applied as a tool for forecasting energy resources and power quality (PQ) indices; secondly, demand is managed, taking advantage of smart appliances (SA) to reduce the electricity bill; finally, energy storage systems (ESS) are also managed to better match the forecasted generation of each prosumer. Results show how these strategies can be coordinated to contribute to energy management in the prosumer nanogrid. A simulation test is included, which proves how effectively the prosumers' power converters track the power setpoints obtained from the proposed strategy.Spanish Agencia Estatal de Investigacion ; Fondo Europeo de Desarrollo Regional

A three‐stage stochastic planning model for enhancing the resilience of distribution systems with microgrid formation strategy

In recent years, severe outages caused by natural disasters such as hurricanes have highlighted the importance of boosting the resilience level of distribution systems. However, due to the uncertain characteristics of natural disasters and loads, there exists a research gap in the selection of optimal planning strategies coupled with provisional microgrid (MG) formation. For this purpose, this study proposes a novel three‐stage stochastic planning model considering the planning step and emergency response step. In the first stage, the decisions on line hardening and Distributed Generation (DG) placement are made with the aim of maximising the distribution system resilience. Then, in the second stage, the line outage uncertainty is imposed via the given scenarios to form the provisional MGs based on a master‐slave control technique. In addition, the non‐anticipativity constraints are presented to guarantee that the MG formation decision is based on the line damage uncertainty. Last, with the realisation of the load demand, the cost of load shedding in each provisional MG is minimised based on a demand‐side management program. The proposed method can consider the step‐by‐step uncertainty realisation that is near to the reality in MG formation strategy. Two standard distribution systems are utilised to validate the correctness and effectiveness of the presented model

Synchronization in Networks of Identical Systems via Pinning: Application to Distributed Secondary Control of Microgrids

Motivated by the need for fast synchronized operation of power microgrids, we analyze the problem of single and multiple pinning in networked systems. We derive lower and upper bounds on the algebraic connectivity of the network with respect to the reference signal. These bounds are utilized to devise a suboptimal algorithm with polynomial complexity to find a suitable set of nodes to pin the network effectively and efficiently. The results are applied to secondary voltage pinning control design for a microgrid in islanded operation mode. Comparisons with existing single and multiple pinning strategies clearly demonstrates the efficacy of the obtained results.Comment: 11 pages, 9 figures, submitted to Transactions on Control Systems Technolog

Operation and control strategy of coupled microgrid clusters

A standalone remote area microgrid may frequently experience overloading due to lack of sufficient power generation or excessive renewable-based generation that can cause unacceptable voltage and frequency deviation. This can lead the microgrid to operate with less resiliency and reliability. Such problems are conventionally alleviated by load-shedding or renewable curtailment. Alternatively, autonomously operating microgrids in a geographical area can be provisionally connected to each other to facilitate power exchange for addressing the problems of overloading or overgeneration. The power exchange link among the microgrids can be of different types such as a three-phase ac, a single-phase ac, or a dc-link. Power electronic converters are required to interconnect such power exchange networks to the three-phase ac microgrids and control the power-sharing amongst them. Such arrangement is also essential to interconnect microgrid clusters to each other with proper isolation while maintaining autonomy if they are operating in different standards. In this thesis, the topologies, and structures of various forms of power exchange links are investigated and appropriate operation and control frameworks are established under which power exchange can take place properly. A decentralised control mechanism is employed to facilitate power-sharing without any data communication. The dynamic performance of the control mechanism for all the topologies is illustrated through simulation studies in PSIM® while the stability and robustness of the operation are evaluated using numerical studies in MATLAB®