Distributed Energy Resources Based Microgrid: Review of Architecture, Control, and Reliability

To accomplish feasible large-scale integration of distributed energy resources (DER) into the existing grid system, microgrid implementation has proven to be the most effective. This article reviews the vital aspects of DER based microgrid and presents simulations to investigate the impacts of DER sources, electric vehicles (EV), and energy storage system (ESS) on practicable architectures' resilient operation. The focus is primarily on the concept and definition of microgrid, comparison of control strategies (primary, secondary, and tertiary strategies), energy management strategies, power quality (PQ) issues associated with DER based microgrid, and state-of-the-art entities such as ESS and EV's applications toward microgrid reliability. Following discussion on the different attributes of DER sources-based microgrid, simulations are performed to verify the results of the past works on the effects of solar, wind energy sources, ESS, and EVs on the microgrid frequency response. Additional simulations are conducted to assess the influences of DERs, ESS, EVs, and their operational strategies on the microgrid reliability aspects.