Microgrid distributed secondary control and energy management using multi-agent system

This paper is concerned with the two-stage hierarchical control of microgrids (MG) that can operate in both grid-connected and off-grid modes. The procedure consists in the segmentation of the control scheme in the primary and secondary levels, thus enabling the application of faster and slower dynamics according to the process. A decentralized droop control-based method is used in the primary level, while a distributed multi-agent coordination scheme is applied in the secondary one. The multi-agent system is run on Python Agent DEvelopment (PADE) environment, a FIPA-compliant agent framework. The key contributions this paper provides are the control strategies of reactive power output of non-dispatchable sources, dynamic sharing of energy storage systems, and the management of loads of microgrids, all of them based on multi-agent system. Co-simulations using PSCAD(TM) and PADE are performed considering several operating scenarios of the MG resources under different load conditions. Simulation results validate the accurate performance of the proposed control strategies.