Centralized monitoring of a cost efficient PLC‐SCADA based islanded microgrid considering dispatch techniques

Abstract

Abstract Currently, the generation of energy relies primarily on the usage of harmful fossil fuels all over the world. New technologies, on the other hand, have enabled renewable energy resources to have a reduced environmental effect, greater long‐term sustainability, and, in some cases, to be cheaper than fossil fuels. Microgrids that use renewable resources can deliver low‐cost clean electricity while also improving local resiliency. They do, however, have certain issues in terms of regulating internal frequency and voltage within a microgrid, which is hampered by the intermittent nature of renewable sources. An islanded Microgrid for San Andres, Colombia has been designed for 24.57 kW peak load composed of a PV‐wind‐storage system by considering dispatch strategy based control in Homer Pro and assessed utilizing Simulink/MATLAB. Lastly, a PLC‐SCADA system along a HMI (Human‐Machine Interface) in C# was created to monitor the Microgrid in real‐time and produce an alarm as the microgrid elements are not operating within their ideal range of operational. The data from HMI is automatically uploaded to a cloud database. This work incorporates the dispatch control based techno‐economic design, assessment and a complete supervisory control strategy for an optimum microgrid.

Keywords

• load dispatching
• microgrids
• power system simulation
• SCADA systems