A Novel Multiagent Control Scheme for Voltage Regulation in DC Distribution Systems

This paper proposes a novel multiagent control scheme to mitigate the voltage regulation challenges of dc distribution systems (DCDSs) with high penetration of distributed and renewable generation (DG). The proposed control scheme consists of two sequential stages. In the first stage, a distributed state estimation algorithm is implemented to estimate the voltage profile in a DCDS, thus enhancing the ac/dc converter operation to keep the system voltages within specified limits. The second stage is activated only when the ac/dc fails to regulate the system voltages. Two distributed power management control strategies are proposed in the second stage. The first is based on a distributed equal curtailment, at which all DG units responsible for the voltage violation are equally curtailed. The second strategy aims to optimize the output power in order to maximize the revenue of DG units. The formulated problem in the second strategy is classified as a convex optimization problem under global constraints. A distributed Lagrangian primal-dual subgradient (DLPDS) algorithm is proposed in order to obtain the global optimal solution of the formulated problem. Various case studies are performed to prove the effectiveness, robustness, and convergence characteristics of the proposed control schemes.