Substantial differences in fault levels between grid-tied and islanded modes is one of the primary challenges of microgrid protection. During grid-tied mode, the bulk grid provides significant short-circuit, while during islanded operation the short-circuit magnitude is small due to inverter-based resources limiting their current output close to nominal ratings. Consequently, conventional distribution protection strategies based on overcurrent cannot reliably protect microgrids when operating in islanded mode. Fuses and circuit breakers are particularly affected because of their inverse characteristics. Presently, the absence of affordable solutions for protecting microgrids in islanded mode leads to microgrids shutting down during electrical faults. The contribution of this paper is two-fold. The first innovation proposes specific hardware modifications to grid-forming inverters to increase their short-circuit current during electrical faults. The second innovation introduces a novel control strategy designed to preserve control stability margins even when the grid-filter saturates, ensuring sinusoidal output currents under normal and fault conditions. Through experimental results, the inverter with the proposed modifications can provide more than three-times its nominal current during electrical faults. For the prototype testbed, this was sufficient to enable the use of traditional legacy overcurrent protection, achieving the fuse-to-relay and relay-to-relay minimum coordination time for the line-to-ground, line-to-line and three-phase electrical faults.

This paper proposed an distributed energy management for modern distribution systems with various actively interfaced participants, such as distributed energy resources (DERs), flexible loads, and different kinds of microgrids. Given different ownerships, objectives, requirements on autonomy and data privacy, a multi-objective optimization model considering various network operational objectives and constraints was formulated to coordinated the operation of all active participants for better economics and/or system operator preferred performances. The formulated optimization problem was iteratively solved in a distributed way using the alternating direction method of multipliers (ADMM) algorithm. For each iteration, all participants could adjust their schedules based on their own objectives and the price and nodal unbalance signals received. Then, the distribution management system (DMS) updates the nodal price signals according to the generation-load unbalance at the corresponding bus calculated using the previously updated schedules of all participants. The updated price and nodal unbalance signals are distributed to participants on corresponding buses for another iteration until the calculated generation-load unbalance of all buses are small enough, i.e., power balance is achieved at each bus under updated price signals. In addition, the analytical hierarchy process (AHP) was employed to determine the corresponding weighting coefficients of different objectives. The validity of proposed method is verified by simulations on a modern distribution systems with several actively interfaced microgrids, DERs and flexible loads. The effects of weighting coefficients on the obtained solution as well as convergence of ADMM are also investigated.

The benefits of networked microgrids in terms of economics and resilience are investigated and validated in this work. Considering the stochastic unintentional islanding conditions and conventional forecast errors of both renewable generation and loads, a two-stage adaptive robust optimization is proposed to minimize the total operating cost of networked microgrids in the worst scenario of the modeled uncertainties. By coordinating the dispatch of distributed energy resources (DERs) and responsive demand among networked microgrids, the total operating cost is minimized, which includes the start-up and shut-down cost of distributed generators (DGs), the operation and maintenance (O&M) cost of DGs, the cost of buying/selling power from/to the utility grid, the degradation cost of energy storage systems (ESSs), and the cost associated with load shedding. The proposed optimization is solved with the column and constraint generation (C&CG) algorithm. The results of case studies demonstrate the advantages of networked microgrids over independent microgrids in terms of reducing total operating cost and improving the resilience of power supply.

Load unbalance in electric distribution systems is unavoidable. Unbalanced load currents will lead to negative sequence (NS) voltages that may damage electric equipment. Unbalanced power flow analysis is a common tool to detect and mitigate NS voltage issues and requires accurate models of grid components. While traditional source models are available, grid-forming (GFM) inverter models are not well developed. GFM inverters implement various control strategies, which affect their power flow models. In this article, a novel GFM inverter model considering control effects is proposed. We show that for some control methods, unbalanced system loading will lead to unbalanced terminal voltages of the GFM inverters, which are modeled through an equivalent negative sequence impedance. The proposed models are initially validated using a simple test circuit. Then, they are applied in the power flow analysis on the IEEE 13-bus and 34-bus systems to demonstrate the accuracy improvement over the state-of-the-art. Using time-domain simulations as benchmarks, we show that the proposed models reduce the calculation error of negative sequence voltages by at least 25% in unbalanced distribution systems.

An MILP-based distributed energy management for the coordination of networked microgrids is proposed in this paper. Multiple microgrids and the utility grid are coordinated through iteratively adjusted price signals. Based on the price signals received, the microgrid controllers (MCs) and distribution management system (DMS) update their schedules separately. Then, the price signals are updated according to the generation–load mismatch and distributed to MCs and DMS for the next iteration. The iteration continues until the generation–load mismatch is small enough, i.e., the generation and load are balanced under agreed price signals. Through the proposed distributed energy management, various microgrids and the utility grid with different economic, resilient, emission and socio-economic objectives are coordinated with generation–load balance guaranteed and the microgrid customers’ privacy preserved. In particular, a piecewise linearization technique is employed to approximate the augmented Lagrange term in the alternating direction method of multipliers (ADMM) algorithm. Thus, the subproblems are transformed into mixed integer linear programming (MILP) problems and efficiently solved by open-source MILP solvers, which would accelerate the adoption and deployment of microgrids and promote clean energy. The proposed MILP-based distributed energy management is demonstrated through various case studies on a networked microgrids test system with three microgrids.

This work presents a novel microgrid scheduling model considering the stochastic unintentional islanding conditions as well as forecast errors of both renewable generation and loads. By optimizing the dispatch of distributed energy resources (DERs), utility grid, and demand, the proposed model is targeted to minimize total operating cost of the microgrid, including start-up and shut-down cost of distributed generators (DGs), operation and maintenance (O&M) cost of DGs, cost of buying/selling power from/to utility grid, degradation cost of energy storage systems (ESSs) and cost associated with load shedding. To capture the stochastic unintentional islanding conditions and conventional forecast errors of renewable generation and loads, a two-stage adaptive robust optimization is proposed to optimize the objective function in the worst case scenario of the modeled uncertainties. The proposed optimization is solved with the column and constraint generation (C&CG) algorithm. The result obtained ensures robust microgrid operation in consideration of all possible realization of renewable generation, demand and unintentional islanding condition. The proposed model is validated with results of case studies on a microgrid consisting of various DGs and ESSs.