Grid architecture for future distribution system — A cyber-physical system perspective

Increasing power electronics controlled distributed generation resources and active loads provide a future distributed system with more controllability as well as challenges to synthesize heterogeneous devices. From system engineering's perspective, control and operation of the future distribution system need more insight into the system architecture of the grid. In this paper, in light of the start-of-the-art control strategies for microgrids which rely on power electronics systems, a grid architecture model for future distribution system is proposed based on microgrid clusters. Both the physical and cyber structures for this architecture are described. Two illustrative examples are presented to explain different control methods that can be adopted in this model to harmonize different devices. This architecture can be used to guide the system design for the smart distribution system.