Networked Microgrids for Improving Economics and Resiliency

TL;DR

This paper introduces networked microgrids with a novel probabilistic islanding metric, optimizing their operation to enhance economic efficiency and resilience amidst renewable energy uncertainties.

Contribution

It proposes a chance-constrained optimization framework for scheduling networked microgrids, incorporating the probability of successful islanding to balance cost and resiliency.

Findings

Significant reduction in electricity costs achieved.

Networked microgrids improve resiliency without cost increase.

Correlation among microgrid resources affects performance.

Abstract

In this paper, we propose networked microgrids to facilitate the integration of variable renewable generation and improve the economics and resiliency of electricity supply in microgrids. A new concept, probability of successful islanding (PSI) is used to quantify the islanding capability of a microgrid considering the uncertainty of renewable energy resources and load as well as exchanged power at PCC. With the goal of minimizing the total operating cost while preserving user specified PSI, a chance-constrained optimization problem is formulated for the optimal scheduling of both individual microgrid and networked microgrids. Numerical simulation results show significant saving in electricity cost can be achieved by proposed networked microgrids without compromising the resiliency. The impact of correlation coefficients among the renewable generation and load of adjacent microgrids has been studied as well.