Economic Model Predictive Control based Strategies for Cost-effective Supervision of Community Microgrids Considering Battery Lifetime

Economic Model Predictive Control based Strategies for Cost-effective Supervision of Community Microgrids Considering Battery Lifetime Community-based microgrid systems (C-μGrid) are gaining increasing importance nowadays because of the lack of μGrid public investment and management policies. Technoeconomic analysis shows that C-μGrid based on a cluster of micro-Generators (μGen) could be an effective solution when individual systems are not feasible. In this paper, the controlling capability of the central controller of the C-μGrid (C-μGCC) is improved through an Economic Model Predictive Control (EMPC) approach operating at the pricing level that can fulfill the goal of the operational control of the cluster. With a central controller it is capable of satisfying the demand at prosumer (active energy producer and simultaneous consumer) sides and, at the same time, optimizing the various μ-Grid contrasting constraints. Emphasis here has been given to the operational constraints related to the battery lifetime, so that the maintenance and replacement costs would be reduced. A comparative analysis has been carried out between the performance of two systems, one based on an IF-THEN-ELSE heuristic supervision logic (S-LOGIC) and the other on the proposed Economic MPC (EMPC) strategy. The analysis has been undertaken in a location in Dublin, Ireland, on the basis of available measured data. Simulation shows the effectiveness of implementing the EMPC approach to optimally manage the system.