Optimal Energy Management of Vanadium Redox Flow Batteries Energy Storage System for Frequency Regulation and Peak Shaving in an Islanded Microgrid

This paper proposes a centralized control method of vanadium redox flow battery (VRFB) energy storage system (ESS) that can achieve frequency regulation with cost minimization and peak shaving in a microgrid. A particle swarm optimization-based approach is used to optimize the ESS operation and it determines the optimal power dispatch of VRFB ESS and other distributed generation (DG) units. Simulation tests are conducted on an isolated microgrid system with VRFB ESS, DGs and PVs for frequency regulation and a load demand profile for peak shaving. Various case studies, such as the load step up, load step down and peak shaving, are conducted to show the validity of the proposed method. Simulation results show that the designed algorithm can achieve frequency regulation with reduced operation costs and peak shaving.