The present research investigations in power management fraternity are focused towards the realization of smart microgrid (MG) technologies. Due to intrinsic advantages of Direct Current (DC) system in terms of compatibility with power generation sources, modern loads and storage devices, DC MG has becoming popular over Alternate Current (AC) system. A secondary voltage and current control schemes of DC MG system are mainly based on the distributed consensus control of Multi-agent system (MAS) to balance generation and the demand. The basic concern of the cooperative control of MAS is consensus, which is to design a suitable control law such that the output of all agents can achieve synchronization. The distributed consensus algorithm requires much less computational power and information exchange in between the neighbor's agent. Meanwhile the other controllers such as model predictive control (MPC) requires accurate dynamic models with high computational cost and it suffers from lack of flexibility. The hierarchical consensus control technique is classified into three levels according to their features, namely primary, secondary, and tertiary. MAS is a popular distributed platform to efficiently manage the secondary control level for synchronization and communication among the power converters in autonomous MGs. In this article, various primary control techniques for local voltage control, voltage restoration in the secondary control level and tertiary control for energy management techniques are discussed. With this, the key emphasis to reduce the voltage deviation and disturbances in a heterogeneous DC MG network solutions are discussed. Furthermore, to analyze the system response and the charging and discharging characteristics of the battery unit, the developed second order heterogeneous consensus controller is compared with the traditional homogeneous consensus control and droop control methods. Finally a detailed discussion on simulation case study using heterogeneous consensus control method over the traditional methods are provided using MATLAB/Simulink platform.

In this work, a DC microgrid consists of a solar photovoltaic, wind power system and fuel cells as sources interlinked with the utility grid. The appropriate sizing and positioning of electric vehicle charging stations (EVCSs) and renewable energy sources (RESs) are concurrently determined to curtail the negative impact of their placement on the distribution network’s operational parameters. The charging station location problem is presented in a multi-objective context comprising voltage stability, reliability, the power loss (VRP) index and cost as objective functions. RES and EVCS location and capacity are chosen as the objective variables. The objective functions are tested on modified IEEE 33 and 123-bus radial distribution systems. The minimum value of cost obtained is USD 2.0250 × 10⁶ for the proposed case. The minimum value of the VRP index is obtained by innovative scheme 6, i.e., 9.6985 and 17.34 on 33-bus and 123-bus test systems, respectively. The EVCSs on medium- and large-scale networks are optimally placed at bus numbers 2, 19, 20; 16, 43, and 107. There is a substantial rise in the voltage profile and a decline in the VRP index with RESs’ optimal placement at bus numbers 2, 18, 30; 60, 72, and 102. The location and size of an EVCS and RESs are optimized by the modified teaching-learning-based optimization (TLBO) technique, and the results show the effectiveness of RESs in reducing the VRP index using the proposed algorithm.

The unpredictable nature of the loads and non-linearity of the components of microgrid systems make optimal scheduling more complex. In this paper, a deterministic optimal load-scheduling problem is developed for microgrids operating in both islanding and grid-connected mode under different energy scenarios. Various cases are considered in this research, based on the interaction and dynamic behavior of the microgrid, considering electric vehicles (EVs) in the scenario. The aim of this research is to minimize the overall cost of microgrid operations. The concept of dynamic pricing has also been introduced in order to optimize the energy cost for the consumers. For ensuring the stability of the microgrids, a load variance index has been considered, and the fuzzy-based approach has been used for cost and load variance minimization to reduce the operation cost without compromising the stability of the microgrid. The grid-to-vehicle (G2V) and vehicle-to-grid (V2G) operations of EVs are integrated into the microgrid, which would help in valley filling and peak shaving of the loads during the off-peak and peak hours, respectively. In order to solve the proposed complex combinatorial optimization problem, elephant herding optimization (EHO) is modified and implemented. The performance of the proposed improved EHO (IEHO) is first tested on the latest CEC test functions. The results obtained by IEHO after 100 different trials are compared with the latest published methods and are found to be better based on the average value and the standard deviation for different CEC test functions. In addition, the simulation results obtained by particle swarm optimization (PSO), EHO, and proposed IEHO on a microgrid test system for different scenarios with all cases reveal that the proposed model with a mix of energy resources in the dynamic load dispatch environment bring the maximum benefits of microgrid systems. Furthermore, the results obtained from the simulation verifies that if free trade of power is allowed between the microgrids and the main grid, the process of power generation can be more economical, and further introduction of dynamic pricing into the scenario proves to be even cheaper. The implementation of the G2V and V2G operations of EVs operations in the proposed scenario not only helped in cost minimization but also helped in stabilizing the grid.

Electric vehicles (EVs) have created a revolution in sustainable transportation. The number of EV users has increased significantly within a short period globally. EVs running largely on the battery source require large-capacity battery packs to handle the range anxiety. The primary lifetime of such batteries in EV applications is said to end when their capacity drops to 80% of their initial capacity. This is termed as the end of-life of these batteries. These batteries can still be utilized for secondary applications based on their remaining capacity. Batteries undergo many degradations throughout their lifecycle which affects their capacity. This paper carries out a detailed study on the major degradation factors like solid electrolyte interphase and lithium plating which results in loss of lithium inventory. These affect the capacity of the battery in the long run. Remaining useful capacity must be accurately estimated to identify if the cells are useful for the next phase or must be recycled. Many estimation techniques are available with attention rising towards data derivational methods due to their accuracy and their sensitivity towards battery degradation which thereby makes it easy to track them. Incremental capacity analysis is one such method which is discussed in detail in this paper. The method starts from the initial stage of data extraction and extends to the training set of the models. This method is greatly beneficial as it can reveal the deviations in battery behavior with the help of the valley peak locations and alterations in the slope. The quantitative insights make it an advantageous technique in the field of battery health monitoring and diagnostics. These are discussed in detail and validated by experimental analysis and results. This paper also discusses the market prospects, developments, various ageing mechanisms in batteries, applications, comparison with other estimation techniques and challenges related to secondary life applications. The complete analysis of the estimation method along with the detailed steps also aims to serve as a foundation for the upcoming developments and research in this field.

In the era of aiming toward reaching a sustainable ecosystem, the primary focus is to curb the emissions generated by non-conventional resources. One way to achieve this goal is to find an alternative to traditional power plants (TPP) by integrating various distributed energy resources (DERs) via a Virtual Power Plant (VPP) in modern power systems. Apart from reducing emissions, a VPP enhances the monetary benefits to all its participants, including the DER owners, participants, and utility personnel. In this paper, the multi-objective optimal scheduling of the VPP problem considering multiple renewable energy resources has been solved using the multi-objective black widow optimization (MOBWO) algorithm. Renewable resources consist of solar PV modules, wind turbines, fuel cells, electric loads, heat-only units, and CHP units. The weighting factor method was adopted to handle the multi-objective optimal scheduling (MOOS) problem by simultaneously maximizing profit and minimizing emission while satisfying the related constraints. In this research, a peak valley power pricing strategy is introduced and the optimal scheduling of the VPP is attained by performing a multi-objective scheduling strategy (MOSS), which is day-ahead (on an hourly basis) and 15-min based (for a one-day profile), to observe the behavior of the anticipated system with a better constraint handling method. This algorithm is capable of dealing with a complex problem in a reduced computational time, ensuring the attainment of the considered objective functions. The numerical results obtained by the MOBWO algorithm after 100 independent trials were compared with the latest published work showing the effectiveness and suitability of the developed system.