Testing of a Predictive Control Strategy for Balancing Renewable Sources in a Microgrid

This paper presents the design of a control strategy for the energy management of a grid-connected microgrid with local distributed energy resources as: 10-kW photovoltaic plant, 11-kW wind turbine, and 15-kW–190-kWh vanadium-based electric storage system. According to future regulations, the renewable energy producers will also have to provide a day-ahead hourly production plan. The overall idea is, by knowing the meteorological forecasts for the next 24 h, to dispatch the microgrid in order to be able to grant the scheduled hourly production by means of proper management of the storage system. The usage of the storage system is, however, minimized by the energy management strategy. The system design is validated by experimental testing carried out in SYSLAB, a distributed power system test facility at Risø Campus, Technical University of Denmark.