An Energy Resource Scheduler Implemented in the Automatic Management System of a Microgrid Test Facility

The paper deals with a microgrid test facility, settled at the CESI RICERCA laboratories, equipped with various distributed energy resources (DERs) and connected to a LV network. The operation of such a microgrid is supervised by a central automatic microgrid management system (MMS). The paper first reports and discusses some experimental results carried out for the assessment of DERs performance and for the implementation of specific MMS functions. Then, it describes the functions of the energy resources scheduler (ERS) implemented in the MMS. The scheduler periodically updates the set points of DERs regulators in order to achieve economic, reliability and power quality objectives, starting form the load and renewable production forecasts and from the results of the system state estimation. The ERS is composed by two main parts, namely: a day-ahead economic scheduler of active power set points during the following day for the minimization of the overall costs, and an intra-day scheduler that every 15 minutes settles the set points of the DERs regulators to optimize the voltage profile at the grid buses, taking into account both technical constraints and the day-ahead economic schedules.