A Robot-Soccer-Coordination Inspired Control Architecture Applied to Islanded Microgrids

Nowadays, islanded microgrids present a high interest due to the increasing penetration of renewable energy resources, especially in remote areas, or for improving the local energy reliability. A microgrid can operate in grid-connected or islanded mode, being necessary the use of energy storage systems (ESSs) under islanded operation, in order to ensure the generation/consumption power balance and smooth uncertainties in the dynamics of the renewable energy sources (RESs). Particularly, in islanded operation at least one of the distributed energy resources (DERs) should assume the regulation of the common bus. In a microgrid, every DER may be able to cooperate with the grid regulation in accordance to its particular operational conditions. In this sense, a centralized unit with a global perception of the load demand, the power provided by the RESs, and the storage capacity of the ESSs, may ensure proper and reliable operation of the microgrid. This paper proposes a structured architecture based on tactics, roles, and behaviors for a coordinated operation of islanded microgrids. The architecture is inspired on a robot soccer strategy with global perception and centralized control, which determines the changes among operation modes for the DERs in an islanded ac microgrid.