A Microcontroller-Based Power Management System for Standalone Microgrids With Hybrid Power Supply

Author

Belvedere, Bruno ; Bianchi, Michele ; Borghetti, Alberto ; Nucci, Carlo Alberto ; Paolone, Mario ; Peretto, Antonio

Author_Institution

Fac. of Eng., Univ. of Bologna, Bologna, Italy

Volume

3

Issue

3

fYear

2012

fDate

7/1/2012 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

422

Lastpage

431

Abstract

The paper presents a microcontroller-based power management system (PMS) designed for the online operation of an experimental low voltage microgrid equipped with a battery storage system and two power supplies: a kilowatt (kW)-class proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cell (FC) and a photo-voltaic (PV) module emulator, both connected to a low voltage ac node. The connections of the energy sources to the common ac bus make use of power inverters with specific functionalities. The ac node feeds electric active and reactive load emulators able to reproduce programmable profiles. The automatic PMS provides the microgrid monitoring and the FC power scheduling in both grid-connected and islanded operating conditions. The paper describes the structure and functionalities of the PMS as well as a specific experimental investigation aimed at assessing the dynamic performance of the microgrid in islanded conditions.

Keywords

distributed power generation; invertors; microcontrollers; power system management; proton exchange membrane fuel cells; FC power scheduling; PEMFC; ac node feeds electric active; automatic PMS; battery storage system; dynamic performance; energy sources; grid-connected conditions; hybrid power supply; islanded operating conditions; kilowatt-class proton exchange membrane fuel cell; low voltage ac node; microcontroller-based power management system; microgrid monitoring; photo- voltaic module emulator; power inverters; programmable profiles; reactive load emulators; standalone microgrids; Batteries; Discharges; Estimation; Hybrid power systems; Lead; System-on-a-chip; Temperature measurement; Battery; digital microcontroller; electrical microgrids; fuel cell (FC); photovoltaic (PV) emulator; power management system (PMS);

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Sustainable Energy, IEEE Transactions on

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

1949-3029

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/TSTE.2012.2188654

Filename

6194985