An MPC-Aided Resilient Operation of Multi-Microgrids With Dynamic Boundaries

Microgrids (MGs) with dynamic boundaries provide an alternative solution to serve distribution systems without energization from the utility. Adopting the concept of dynamic MGs enables a flexible operation of service restoration toward resilient distribution networks by changing system topology through smart switches and conventional circuit breakers. This work proposes a novel restoration framework including three control phases including initial, restorative and corrective actions for the distribution network (DN) with full utilization of the flexibility of distributed generators in various operational modes. Comparing with existing works that only consider MGs as a constant negative load and ignore the dynamics of different components within MGs, each MG is equipped with a model predictive control (MPC)-based controller that is responsible for optimally scheduling available power to the DN based on its local generation and load demand. Aided by the MPC framework, in this article, the conventional restoration strategy is extended that further includes the operational dynamic behavior of MGs during restoration process guaranteeing a more flexible and reliable operation. Several numerical cases are studied using the IEEE 8500-node test system to verify the effectiveness and scalability of the proposed framework.