A novel supervisory control approach to switching operations for hybrid wind/diesel/battery/mains energy systems

Hybrid energy systems, integrating renewable energy technologies with diesel generators, batteries and inverters, can provide 24 h grid quality power to remote communities. Work in the Centre for Renewable Energy Systems Technology Australia (CRESTA) has been carried out to develop a new hybrid/wind/diesel/battery/mains energy system. In the system, the switching operations of different modes play an important role in the proper running of the system. From the view of discrete event dynamic systems, a novel supervisory control approach for the switching operations of modes has been explored, in which the switching actions are defined as events, switching modes as states and events take the system from one state to another. The supervisory controller for a prototype of the hybrid wind/ diesel/battery/mains energy system has been designed and it has been simulated in PSCAD/EMTDC. The results reveal that this technique could facilitate the analysis and design of supervisory controllers for switching operations, particularly in the complicated hybrid energy systems.