On-line management and control of distributed renewable energy power plants

In the competitive environment due to the deregulation, the electric distribution systems must drastically improve their performance levels in terms of high reliability and quality in order to meet the customer demand. Flexible, Reliable and Intelligent Electric Energy Delivery Systems (FRIENDS) will utilise dispersed generators (photovoltaic equipment) and dispersed energy storage systems. Sophisticated systems will require advanced software and hardware technologies for online management and control. A suitable logic for the distribution automation must be (developed) adopted. Recently, a flexible and reliable logic for the automation of a hybrid power plant has been presented: it is based on the use of an expert system, fuzzy logic theory, neural networks and programmable logical controllers. On this basis, looking to the distribution automation in the paper, a preliminary structure of the management and online control of a high quality distribution system with dispersed generation is presented.