A control strategy for the management of islanded networks with renewables and storage systems

Management of intentional islanded networks is becoming more and more interesting both in developed contexts and as first electrification of rural areas, presently not reached by central transmission and distribution networks. In islanded systems or network portions operating disconnected from the main grid, aiming to maximize the exploitation of renewable sources, new control strategies to guarantee frequency and voltage stability are required. An effective compensation of load variations and the optimal management of generators´ unpredictability and intermittency are core objectives. In these systems, an intelligent use of local storage units can improve the network performances, besides optimizing the renewable output. A new strategy for coordinating renewable units and a storage system is introduced and tested on a realistic simplified network. Remote communication absence does not impact on the proposed controller effectiveness. Different simulations, carried out making use of DIgSILENT PowerFactory tool, show the effectiveness of the proposed strategy.