MicroGrid Designer: user-friendly design, operation and control assist tools for resilient microgrid and autonomous community

Abstract

During this decade, many countries have experienced natural and accidental disasters, such as typhoons, floods, earthquakes, and nuclear plant accidents, causing catastrophic damage to infrastructures. Since the end of 2019, all countries of the world are struggling with the COVID-19 and pursuing countermeasures, including inoculation of vaccine, and changes in our lifestyle and social structures. All these experiences have made the residents in the affected regions keenly aware of the need for new infrastructures that are resilient and autonomous, so that vital lifelines are secured during calamities. A paradigm shift has been taking place toward reorganizing the energy social service management in many countries, including Japan, by effective use of sustainable energy and new supply schemes. However, such new power sources and supply schemes would affect the power grid through intermittency of power output and the deterioration of power quality and service. Therefore, new social infrastructures and novel management systems to supply energy and social service will be required. In this paper, user-friendly design, operation and control assist tools for resilient microgrids and autonomous communities are proposed and applied to the standard microgrid to verify its effectiveness and performance.

Keywords

• Microgrid
• Autonomous community
• Grid design and analysis
• Resilience
• Unit commitment
• Economic load dispatch