Peer-to-Peer Control for Networked Microgrids: Multi-Layer and Multi-Agent Architecture Design

The integration of microgrids (MGs) in distribution networks forms the networked microgrids (NMGs). The peer-to-peer (P2P) control architecture is able to fully exploit the flexibility and resilience of NMGs. This paper proposes a multi-layer and multi-agent architecture to achieve P2P control of NMGs. The control framework is fully distributed and contains three control layers operated in the agent of each MG. For primary control, a droop control is adopted by each MG-agent for localized power sharing. For secondary control, a distributed consensus algorithm is proposed for frequency/voltage restoration and arbitrary power sharing among MGs. For tertiary control, the power loss in the NMG system is minimized by using alternating direction method of multipliers (ADMM). The architecture of the MG agent are designed, which processes the three control layers via information exchange among neighbouring agents. The proposed framework is validated in a hardware-in-the-loop test-bed, where NMG system with six buses and three MGs is emulated in the OPAL-RT, while the control algorithms are realized by a multi-agent system. The experimental results verify the effectiveness and advantages of the proposed framework, which demonstrates a practical control framework design for NMG systems.