Energy Management System for Isolated PV Microgrid focusing on the Remote Areas

Abstract

Remote or rural areas are often excluded from the power planning expansion due to their isolated location and not cost-benefit. Nonetheless, the electricity to remote or rural areas is complemented and necessary. Thus, the isolated microgrid can be developed from the renewable energy sources of solar PV associated with battery energy storage. However, in isolated PV microgrids, the energy management for controlling power flow due to the inconstant energy sources and load variation is one of the crucial aspects that need to be appropriately addressed. This factor not only can affect the performance of the microgrid but would shorten the life cycle of the battery energy storage. Thus, this paper proposed a strategy to manage the energy sources in the isolated PV microgrid with a less complex approach through energy management system (EMS). Furthermore, the proposed approach is intended to prevent the situation of overcharging and discharging by considering the level of the current charge/discharge. The proposed isolated PV microgrid has been developed and analyzed through a simulation environment. As a result, the proposed EMS can manage the operation of the isolated PV microgrid with proper power flow and energy sharing to the load variations.