Design and development of Controller Area Network based communication architecture for power sharing in a DC microgrid

Advent of smart grids and microgrids has created a need for fast, reliable and robust communication network, as it directly affects the energy flow and power management. Conventional droop methods, though reliable, are slow and not very accurate. Hence, a suitable communication protocol and a well-defined architecture, which would perform satisfactorily in a harsh electrical environment is a must. CAN (Controller Area Network) due to its versatile features like robust error handling, high frame rate, collision free arbitration, broadcasting, differential signal transfer etc. provides an apt option to the need. To validate the CAN communication algorithm, a prototype CAN bus along with CAN nodes, for a DC microgrid that is fed by solar Photo-Voltaic (PV), battery and Fuel Cell (FC) through boost type dc-dc converters is designed and developed. A novel load shedding algorithm using CAN has been designed for the developed system. This paper includes experimental results and observations of the power sharing between the aforementioned converters based on the CAN communication link.