Design and implementation of a communication network and operating system for an adaptive integrated hybrid AC/DC microgrid module

This paper proposes an adaptive integrated hybrid AC/DC microgrid module to accommodate a wide range of distributed renewable energy resources (DRERs), distributed energy storage devices (DESDs) and distributed demand resources (DDRs) into the existing distribution systems. This microgrid module is designed to be portable, scalable, easy to deploy, and simple to operate. The modeling of the proposed microgrid module, based on the IEC 61850 standard, is presented. A novel logical node is introduced, which describes functionalities of the bidirectional interlinking converter (BIC) interfacing AC sub-grid and DC sub-grid in a better way. To achieve the target of plug-and-play functionalities, specific microgrid module communication network (MMCN) and microgrid module operating systems (MMOS) are designed and implemented in the hardware prototype built in the laboratory. Experimental results obtained from the lab prototype clearly validate the effectiveness of the proposed design of the microgrid module, communication network and operating system.