Combined Operations of Renewable Energy Systems and Responsive Demand in a Smart Grid

The integration of renewable energy systems (RESs) in smart grids (SGs) is a challenging task, mainly due to the intermittent and unpredictable nature of the sources, typically wind or sun. Another issue concerns the way to support the consumers´ participation in the electricity market aiming at minimizing the costs of the global energy consumption. This paper proposes an energy management system (EMS) aiming at optimizing the SG´s operation. The EMS behaves as a sort of aggregator of distributed energy resources allowing the SG to participate in the open market. By integrating demand side management (DSM) and active management schemes (AMS), it allows a better exploitation of renewable energy sources and a reduction of the customers´ energy consumption costs with both economic and environmental benefits. It can also improve the grid resilience and flexibility through the active participation of distribution system operators (DSOs) and electricity supply/demand that, according to their preferences and costs, respond to real-time price signals using market processes. The efficiency of the proposed EMS is verified on a 23-bus 11-kV distribution network.