Development of a small-scale residential microgrid prototype

Abstract

This paper presents the development of an isolated residential microgrid (MR) emulator that includes distributed photovoltaic generation, energy storage using batteries, and electric vehicle technology supplying energy to the power grid (V2G). A study established the main loads in a residential facility and the priority that users give to each of them. Additionally, an energy management system (EMS) was implemented to define the selection criteria and parameters to determine the appropriate energy source ata given time and the operation of the loads according to the availability of energy. In addition, this article presents the design and sizing of the power elements that allow to supply energy to the residential loads. Once the emulator of the isolated residential microgrid was implemented, several laboratory tests were conducted. They enabled to verify the correct operation of the elements of the prototype and the implemented energy management system. The results show that the emulator developed in this work is a powerful academic and research tool that allows multiple tests and experimental setups that facilitate the understanding and validation of calculations and theoretical approximations in the field of isolated electrical microgrids.

Keywords

• Energy storage
• Emulator
• Distributed Generation (DG)
• Microgrid (MG)
• Energy Management System (EMS)
• Vehicle to Grid (V2G)