Multi-Agent System with Plug and Play Feature for Distributed Secondary Control in Microgrid—Controller and Power Hardware-in-the-Loop Implementation
Abstract
:1. Introduction
- Firstly, in MGs, infrastructure may be supplied by different vendors and may be compliant to different protocols. Agents are required to be able to transfer data with local controllers and measurement system through various standardized or commercialized industrial protocols, while on the other hand, has to comply with the inter-agent communication protocols.
- Secondly, in distribution network of MG, the structure of grid and the total capacity of ESSs may change/be upgraded progressively along with the increase of loads and renewable energy sources. Furthermore, ESS is an element which requires regular maintenance and replacement. The corresponding agent has to be activated or deactivated accordingly to the state of the ESS. The local control algorithm (intra-agent) needs to be flexible enough to adapt to this frequent alteration of structure and capacity without major re-configuration.
- Not only at local level, the alteration of topology is also a critical obstacle that needs to be solved to achieve "Plug and Play" capacity at system level. The micro-grid operation is based on the consensus processes of the agents which tries to find a global solution based on limited information acquired from the neighbourhood. Consensus algorithms are introduced mathematically and often adapted to a certain network topology. Therefore, the integration or removal of an agent in the network (or alteration of topology) requires a throughout re-configuration or adaptation of the entire network.
- Last but not least, the asynchronous interaction (inter-agent) under influence of various type of uncertainties in a real communications network is much more complex and is not yet covered in the mathematical model. The performance of the real system may be derived from the theoretical one if this aspect is not considered during the design and validation process. However, in aforementioned research, the communication network is typically ignored. In ref. [25], the data transfer latency is considered, as deterministic time delays which does not accurately reflect realistic communications networks. Furthermore, the design of agents and the interactions among the agents as well as with controllers and devices were ambiguous and unspecific.
- We develop a multi-agent system with “plug and play” capacity for distributed secondary control of frequency in islanded MGs. Firstly, a multi-layer structure is proposed to describe thoroughly the MG system operating with agents. The structure consists of three layers: Device layer, Control layer and Agent layer. The agent, which is an autonomous program with server/client structure, is designed to process an average consensus algorithm and send proper signal to inverter controller in a distributed scheme. The agent is also equipped with the ability of collecting and broadcasting messages via the industrial protocol IEC 61850. The “Plug and Play” capacity is realized at the agent layer, as the system will automatically adapt to the alteration of topology (integration of new agent or removal of an agent) and react accordingly to maintain seamless operation.
- The proposed distributed secondary control is implemented in a laboratory platform based on the propose in [18] with controller and power-hardware-in-the-loop (C/PHIL) setup, incorporating realistic communications network with the impact of uncertainties considered. The performance of system under realistic condition shows that the agents are able to resist to disturbances and to self-configure under alteration of grid topology.
2. MAS Based Multi-Layer Architecture for Distributed Secondary Control in MG
3. Design of Agent with the Plug and Play Feature
Algorithm 1 The average consensus process in Agent i. |
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- Initialization phase: Each agent receives initial state which is its local frequency deviation. Data are transferred from Device layer to Agent layer.
- Updating state phase: States of next iterations in each agent are updated using the agent current state and neighbors’ states following Metropolis rule. An agent will move from Iteration t to Iteration if and only if it collects information from all neighbors at Iteration t. Data are then transferred internally within the Agent layer.
- Returning value phase: At a specific iteration, all agents finish consensus process loop and send the same average value of frequency deviation to controllers. Data are transferred from Agent layer to Control layer.
4. Validation
4.1. Platform Design for Validation of Distributed Control in MG
4.1.1. PHIL with Power Inverter
4.1.2. CHIL with MAS and Realistic Communications Network
4.1.3. Interfaces between Agents and RTDS
4.2. Testing Procedure
4.3. Experimental Results
4.3.1. Step Change of Load Active Power
4.3.2. Disconnecting an ESS
4.3.3. Connecting an ESS to MG
5. Conclusions
Author Contributions
Funding
Conflicts of Interest
References
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Parameter | Value | Unit | |
---|---|---|---|
Inverter 1 | 3 | kW | |
100 | Hz/kW | ||
Inverter 2 | 8 | kW | |
200 | Hz/kW | ||
Inverter 3 | 11 | kW | |
50 | Hz/kW | ||
Inverter 4 | 10 | kW | |
100 | Hz/kW | ||
Inverter 5 | 9 | kW | |
250 | Hz/kW | ||
Secondary controllers | 0.01 | ||
0.12 |
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Share and Cite
Nguyen, T.-L.; Guillo-Sansano, E.; Syed, M.H.; Nguyen, V.-H.; Blair, S.M.; Reguera, L.; Tran, Q.-T.; Caire, R.; Burt, G.M.; Gavriluta, C.; et al. Multi-Agent System with Plug and Play Feature for Distributed Secondary Control in Microgrid—Controller and Power Hardware-in-the-Loop Implementation. Energies 2018, 11, 3253. https://doi.org/10.3390/en11123253
Nguyen T-L, Guillo-Sansano E, Syed MH, Nguyen V-H, Blair SM, Reguera L, Tran Q-T, Caire R, Burt GM, Gavriluta C, et al. Multi-Agent System with Plug and Play Feature for Distributed Secondary Control in Microgrid—Controller and Power Hardware-in-the-Loop Implementation. Energies. 2018; 11(12):3253. https://doi.org/10.3390/en11123253
Chicago/Turabian StyleNguyen, Tung-Lam, Efren Guillo-Sansano, Mazheruddin H. Syed, Van-Hoa Nguyen, Steven M. Blair, Luis Reguera, Quoc-Tuan Tran, Raphael Caire, Graeme M. Burt, Catalin Gavriluta, and et al. 2018. "Multi-Agent System with Plug and Play Feature for Distributed Secondary Control in Microgrid—Controller and Power Hardware-in-the-Loop Implementation" Energies 11, no. 12: 3253. https://doi.org/10.3390/en11123253
APA StyleNguyen, T. -L., Guillo-Sansano, E., Syed, M. H., Nguyen, V. -H., Blair, S. M., Reguera, L., Tran, Q. -T., Caire, R., Burt, G. M., Gavriluta, C., & Luu, N. -A. (2018). Multi-Agent System with Plug and Play Feature for Distributed Secondary Control in Microgrid—Controller and Power Hardware-in-the-Loop Implementation. Energies, 11(12), 3253. https://doi.org/10.3390/en11123253