A microgrid concept for isolated territories of Russia

Most Russia's regions have no centralized electricity supply because of their geographical position. There are more than five thousand autonomous energy sources in the off-grid areas, which are mainly represented by diesel power plants and gas turbines. These power plants use very expensive fuel. A great number of distributed consumers which can be supplied with electricity only from the autonomous energy sources and problems in the existing decentralized electricity supply systems require that the issues of development and optimization of electricity supply to such consumers be urgently solved. Taking into account variable electricity generation, available energy storage systems, as well as stricter requirements imposed by consumers on power quality and electricity supply reliability, we can say that operating conditions of such systems and their control, including emergency control, represent a difficult problem that needs to be studied. In the paper the authors analyze the specific features of microgrid operation in different seasons of the year and different time of the day, formulate a set of problems related to control of microgrid operation and discuss specific features of their solving. The main principles of building a system for operation control are suggested.